


The Mundane Casebook of DI Hathaway

by asparagusmama



Series: The Mundane Lives of the Two James [2]
Category: Lewis (TV), Midsomer Murders
Genre: Gen, Incidental canon characters may appear, Original Character(s), Original police officer characters, Oxfordshire 'Police' and Midsomer Murders locations are all Thames Valley Police really, Slice of Life, crimes other than murder, mentions of past relationship with Lewis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24170542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: The mundane life of crime and down time of DI James Hathaway.Crimes other than murder happen will all too frequency among the dreaming spires of the fine city of Oxford, and sometimes by design, sometimes by accident of being nearby, a CID DI gets to deal with them... and when he has time, James Hathaway likes to take time off, but as he thinks himself, 'how lonely I am'!In other words, snippets in the life of Hathaway[Midsomer Murders crossover chapter 4]
Series: The Mundane Lives of the Two James [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706317
Comments: 20
Kudos: 69





	1. ABH

James Hathaway stood on the doorway of the Gallery on the top of the High, with his friend. He had been glad to come to the opening, he had even been a model, not that anyone knew thankfully, as the exhibition title was ‘Hands and Fingers’; the artist had sketched and produced watercolours in exquisite detail of people’s hands doing every day and creative tasks. Like always, the capture of the real had been impressive and immersive. He stepped down off the high step from the doorway, and turned, smiling awkwardly, and was about to say thank you and how he had liked the paintings, when his friend spoke first,

“Thank you for coming. My agent says I must shake your hand now.”

“It’s okay Phillip, I’m not an art dealer or critic,” Hathaway waved the outstretched hand away, “I’m here as your friend, and want to do whatever makes you comfortable. I’m not big into touching people either,” James concluded with a self-depreciating little snort and small smile. 

Phillip looked back at James with his blank expression, but that was quite normal for him.

“It was good, your work is good. I recognised myself there,” James added.

“Yes. Your hands are interesting. The long fingers are challenging, the fretwork of your guitar was interesting. Thank you for sitting for me.”

“It was a pleasure,” James smiled a little wider. “Goodbye Phillip. I hope your exhibition is well received.”

“It will be. Are you going home now?”

James looked up at the sky, before watching some drunks in tuxes and posh dresses stagger past a sleeping homeless person on the other side of the road. “Yes, it’s a beautiful moonlit night. I’ll walk.”

Phillip also looked up to the sky. “Yes. I shall paint later.”

James raised his hand, and turned and walked away from the gallery and onto the High, and Phillip went back into the horror of the noise of the all the people chatting, the smells of the wine and food and peoples toiletries and personal odours to again assault his senses.

James lit a cigarette as he walked. It wasn’t far down the High, over Magdalene Bridge and across the Plain and up the just under a mile or so of Iffley Road to his flat. And it was a beautiful Autumn night. As stepped into the road to avoid a party of rather drunk girls, and nearly was hit by a bus. He was tired, the last case had been exhausting, with little sleep, he should have gone home as soon as they cracked it, but he had promised Phillip to come to his opening night of his Exhibition.

He back stepped onto the path as a bus approached, near a small dog, guarding its mistress. It looked up at him, wagging its bent tail.

“Hello, boy,” James muttered, and took some change and a fiver from his pocket and tucked it under the sleeping girl.

“Hey, leave me alone, you…” she muttered, sitting up. She they saw the money, and pushed it into a pocket. “Sorry. Thanks Sir.”

“You’re welcome. Do you smoke?”

She shook her head and yawned. 

“Look after yourself,” James said, walking on, wishing he could do more. He often gave the full £15 for a night in the Backpackers Hostel to the lone women, to keep them safe from rape, even if it was just for one night. He had long since given up making vulnerable homeless referrals to the City Council, even if they were genuinely physically or mentally ill, or even if they had just been raped. There was just nothing available for the council to place them. He stuck his head around Laxton's door sometimes, just to remind her that their rapes counted as much as anyone else. For one nasty week in his teens in the nineteen nineties, that had been him on the streets. He knew the fear if not the cold – it being the summer holiday’s he ran away.

As he crossed the road by St Hilda’s, he heard a commotion a little down the street. Two women were fighting, shrieking at each other. A third was trying to separate them. As he approached, warrant card in one hand, phone in the other, the third was pushed into the street.

“It was mine you bitch!” one woman was shouting, pulling the other by the hair.

Meanwhile, the other woman was reaching out to grab her attacker’s hands while kicking out at her.

“Can we both calm down? Ladies. Please! I’m a police officer. If you can leave each other alone.”

The scuffle continued, getting more violent. Hathaway felt momentarily unsure what to do, it was a long time since he’d been in uniform, and he had only been on the streets for the minimum compulsory time expected as a probationer. He’s eidetic brain quickly scrolled through PACE while he helped up the third woman, younger than the other two. All three women smelt like a winery.

“Right, I am placing you both under arrest for a breach of the peace,” he began, as was about to grab both by the scruff of their necks and separated them, now legally allowed to touch them with no come back to him, when one smashed the other’s face into the wall. “And you, I am arresting you for actual bodily harm!” He added, struggling to get his cuffs out from his pocket, and cuffing her, before checking on the other one’s face, now pouring with blood. 

His size seemed to be having an effect, that or his perceived masculinity, or maybe even the words police and arrest, or something, perhaps even the sight of the blood, of which there was already quite a bit, as both were now calming down, the one in cuffs crying, as she watched Hathaway try to stem the blood of the other woman with a clean hanky and a packet of Kleenex.

“Can anyone tell me what this is about?” Hathaway asked, trying to sound calm and in control, but the amount the women’s face was bleeding so much it was beginning to panic him, he’d seen less blood after a knife fight, “Dear God,” he muttered without thinking, “that is a lot of blood, I ought to call an ambulance.”

“Faces bleed a lot,” said the third woman, calmly. She took over from Hathaway, which allowed him to call Control and get a car, a van, and an ambulance.

Processing everyone took hours. How did uniform rush this and get back out, he wondered. There was a night DC on, but she seemed happy to leave it to him. Secretly amused, too, he felt.

Both women were doing DPhils in Social Health and one thought the other had stolen her work, but as both research fields were similar, the data was bound to cross over. At least, that was what the third woman, younger sister to the assailant, an undergraduate, pointed out as she gave her statement.

He charged the woman who had injured the other, and while he felt sorry for her, you couldn’t want to work in healthcare while assaulting people, however much you had been drinking. He’d leave mercy to CPS or the courts. ‘We just nick ‘em,” Lewis had once said to him, in what had turned out to be perhaps one of the worse weeks of his adult life. It had stuck with him.

He went to the hospital, to take the other woman’s statement, and released her under a Caution, as she needed several stitches and antibiotics.

Once he was back at the station, and had completed all the paperwork and forwarded it to CPS, it was the early hours of the morning. He got himself a coffee from the machine and opened the file on the murder he and Lizzie were currently investigating. He suddenly noticed a discrepancy between the taxi’s driver’s statement and the forensics from the taxi, and before he knew it, Call Me Joe was popping his head around the door,

“James? Have you been here all night? A little birdie tells me you made a coincidental conventional collar last night?”

“Sir? I mean, Joe. It was Mrs Harris, the taxi driver’s wife. She’d been having an affair with the Porter. We discounted her, remember, but I think her husband is covering for her.”

“Nice one James. Now, tidy it up for Lizzie, then go home for a sleep.” A sign of slight disobedience must have showed in Hathaway’s face, as his boss added, “Don’t make me make you, I’ll get you escorted by uniform to your door if you don’t go now!”

“Fine,” he muttered in reply, wondering if he sounded as much like a sulky teenager to his boss's ears as he did his own.

Still, it was a beautiful morning, and he bought breakfast from the French patisserie on St Aldates’s, then five more for the rough sleepers under the courts porch opposite the station, and then walked home as Oxford was waking and all the shops and cafes along the high were opening. It was 9 am, maybe 10 pm in New Zealand, he couldn’t quite work out the time difference. Perhaps he should give Robert Lewis a call?


	2. Assault

It was warm inside, outside the rain was sheeting down over the square, the wind buffering and billowing the striped awnings of the market stalls. Few people were browsing the bric a brac, second-hand clothing, records and books, nor the usually tempting array of world foods on offer on the last row of the market stalls. People were scurrying hither and thither, under umbrellas or holding items over their head – newspapers, magazines, books, laptop cases, a spare jumper. Some were pulling suitcases, obviously heading for or away from the coach station behind. Wind occasionally picked up paper and plastic rubbish and blew in between the legs of the damp and hurrying people. It was not a nice day, although when he had left his house the sun had been shining on the rain, painting a rainbow over Rose Hill.

“Mate in three,” Zoe said, interrupting James’ reverie.

“M’mm,” he replied, tipping over his king and returning to looking out of the window of the gaming shop, Thirsty Meeples, where he and Zoe met every third Thursday, work permitting. On both sides, as Zoe was now in the second year of her DPhil and had taken on some teaching work for undergraduates, even though she was really very much of an age of her students.

“Lost in thought again?” she asked.

“Perhaps.”

“Another game? I’ll get us some hot chocolate,” Zoe said, getting up. She returned a while later with two hot chocolates smothered in whipped cream and mini marsh mellows, plus a box of drafts. She sat and began to put the chess pieces away. “I think this is more your level today. Or any day since you deny being a gifted child. And quite frankly are spectacularly rubbish at chess.”

James glanced at her, and then turned back to the window, the rain sheeting it down over the market stalls and people. “I don’t really deny it, do I? More not admit to it."

“Very thoughtful today,” Zoe commented.

“It’s a month ago since my father’s funeral.”

“Ah. Yes. Complex feelings. I’m not very good at those, although I had plenty of them when my Dad was murdered.”

“It’s always complex. Complicated. We didn’t talk for years. Was that my fault?”

“I don’t know. Was it?” Zoe pushed his hot chocolate towards him. James turned and picked up a pink marshmallow.

“I don’t know. I always felt everything was my fault.”

Zoe put a draft piece in each hand and held them out. James tapped her right hand and she revealed the black. “Darkness, to match your mood,” she commented

“It was white for chess,” he replied, contrary, for something to say

“Because you are a white knight, a police officer,” she said seriously.

“Really?” James looked up from his hot chocolate and looked at her confused.

Zoe smiled. “No, of course not. I don’t believe in such airy-fairy hippie dippy crap. I save that for my Mum. It was just a random choice. Or two random choices. Do you want to call it a day?”

“No, I’ll play drafts. Then rain might stop.”

Zoe laid out the drafts on the board. “Have you seen your sister since?” she asked.

“No.”

“Rang Robbie?”

“Why would I speak to Robert Lewis?”

“Because he is your friend,” Zoe suggested meaningfully.

“Is he?” snarled James, and went back to watching the rain. A homeless man ran past, shouting, carrying a sleeping bag and an arm full of clothing. “Excuse me.”

Zoe sighed, as her friend ran out of the shop and after the ranting homeless man.

James saw what was going on, and quickly went to the steps in front of the entrance to the luxury apartment units above the shops. Two young men in sub fusc and colours, obviously very drunk, having newly finished their finals, were scattering the belongings – bedding, clothing, books, food, and a teddy bear - of the three homeless people who ‘lived’ on the steps with the tolerance and acceptance of the residents and concierge.

“Stop it!” he yelled.

“What’s it to do with you?” one of the students brayed.

“Police. Put those belongings down.”

“Prove it lofty!” the other student demanded, sneering.

James pulled his warrant card from his jeans and flashed it in the man’s face, who dropped the pile of quilts into a deep puddle. The homeless man returned with the belongings he had been able to salvage and looked down at the soggy, muddy duvets with weary resignation. It was then that James noticed in the far side of the curved steps was another of the homeless men, the youngest, who was disabled. He was curled up and crying. His walking stick was snapped.

“Are you okay?” James asked, just as the two students started running.

The young man pulled his jumper down from where it had been covering his head, to show his nose was bleeding and he had a split lip. Without another word, James began running after the two students. He was fitter and sober, and soon had grabbed both by their gowns.

“You are both under arrest for assault!” he yelled before they could object to his manhandling them. “Wait here! Or do I need to cuff you?” He really hoped they didn’t call his bluff, as he was off duty, and even if he hadn’t been, he’d have only had the one set. But the word arrest had shocked the two young men, and they stood, shame-faced, looking miserable, while James called for uniform back-up to come take the boys away. One began drunken tears, he had already been called to the bar, his exams were a formality, the other had a place at the think tank as a policy researcher, and they were screwed.

“I’m sure your family lawyers will get you off,” James sneered. “Is that your idea of homelessness policy, destroying the few belongings of someone who has nothing?”

“Scum shouldn’t be on the streets!”

“Agreed, they need homes and money and help! Not that they are the scum here!” James snapped.

“Bleeding heart pig!” snapped one. James was aware of a small crowd of rubberneckers and the stall holders near by all watching and listening. He felt that the sympathy lay with the homeless men and himself though.

“Shut up, and give me your names!” James snapped.

By the time the car arrived, with two uniformed constables, he had names and addresses, and handed them over. He told them he’d take the victims statements and be in later, but one of the constables, a very young woman who barely looked out of her teens, promised she would. The homeless man with the armfuls of bedding and clothing was hovering, and she walked over to him, but he panicked at the sight of her uniform and began to run.

“I’ll give a witness statement and try to take theirs,” James promised, “Just get these two young… gentlemen… off the streets and into the cells to sober up. Drunk and disorderly will do. We’ll try for assault later.”

“Yes, Inspector, Sir,” she said, and they led them through the market to their car, to the watchful eyes of the market holders and their customers, as well as a lot with people from the coach station behind the market.

“Thanks. Didn’t know you were a cop,” the homeless man, Rob, said. James bought the three young men a meal after every meet up with Zoe. “Thought you were a Prof or something.”

James shrugged. “In another life, maybe. How is your friend, will he give a statement?” he asked as he picked up the soggy pile of quilts. A woman came out of one of the shops, a tourist gift shop, and walked towards them.

“I saw what happened. I can run those through my tumble dryer if you like,” she offered.

James looked at Rob, who nodded, stunned. “Ta.”

“I’ll get some bin bags then, to carry them,” she said, heading back to her shop, the window full of OU, Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland tat. As she walked off, one of the stall holders walked up to James, carrying a patterned walking stick with adjustable holes, to lengthen and shorten it.

“This is for the boy,” he said.

“Thank you,” James said, and Rob gave the man a thumbs up.

Meanwhile, Zoe was sitting on the step with the other homeless man, or boy, as there was no way he could be as old as eighteen. She had a handful of napkins and had been stemming the flow of blood.

“Alright sweetheart?” asked Rob. The boy nodded, but he was shaking. Rob held up the walking stick, patterned with yellow smiling faced emojis. The boy tried a painful grin, and winced and dabbed at his split upper lip.

“Don’t. You’ll get infected,” Zoe said. “I’ll get you some antiseptic wipes. I’ll also get some hot chocolate for you. Anything else?” Hot chocolate was Zoe’s answer to everything and anything troubling. She made her students some during her tutorials and seminars, James knew.

“Food would be good,” Rob said, looking at the sandwiches and biscuits and crisps a kind person had bought them all swimming in puddles in front of the steps.

“Of course,” replied Zoe.

“Can I take your statement?” James asked, lowering himself onto the steps beside the young man.

“What’s the point?” Rob demanded, “You know they will get away with it?”

“For now, yes, probably,” James agreed sadly. “But who knows, if it’s on record, someone could find it in 20 or 30 years when those Bullingdon arses are in government and cause them a little embarrassment if nothing else.”

Rob grinned, and sat down the other side of this friend. “What do you say, Josh?”

“Will I have to go to court? I don’t want to go to court?” he began to rock.

“No,” James promised, as he knew those two privileged gits would get lawyers to get them off any charges by tomorrow.

Just then a third homeless man ran up, a bag of Big Issue magazines banging at his hip. “Sally said some nobs beat up Josh!””

“He’s okay,” Rob said, as the third, Pete, sat down and examined Josh’s face.

*

Half an hour later, James sat back in Thirsty Meeples, placing his drafts randomly, not paying attention. He had taken three statements, the kind shop owner had taken their things to wash and dry, promising to return them by nightfall, and Zoe had returned with a bag of Tescos groceries and toiletries, two pizzas, two pots of noodle soup, and two large hot chocolates. She’d taken one look at Pete, and went off to get one more of each from the various outlets on Gloucester Green.

“You’re too good to be a policeman, sometimes,” Zoe said, across the board. “Sometimes I can see the priest you could have been.”

“Not really,” James contradicted. Not believing it at all.

“Pete and Rob are a couple, aren’t they? They sort of adopted Josh I think.”

“They were farm labourers, tied accommodation. Farm was compulsory purchased for housing. Pete is bipolar, Rob has some kind mental health issue too I believe, and Pete is illiterate. Neither has a single qualification. Josh ran away from family abuse. Slipped through the cracks.”

“Many of us do that,” Zoe said quietly, thinking no one but a holy person takes time to know a street person, but she didn’t want to annoy her friend any more than she obviously already had. “We make our own families instead,” she added, smiling warmly at James, but he did not pick up at her hint of care

“He’s also not well, but that could be just being on the streets,” he said instead, thinking of the boy’s weak leg and arm, his stumbles and need for a walking stick or other support. He had tried to get him referred to several charities and the council to get him off the streets, but there just was no funding or spaces anywhere. When he had arrived back in Oxford as an CID officer, in 2004, there had been four homeless shelters, one for the youth, one for women, and one that took dogs, as well as the largest, by Oxpens. All had closed since 2010, most had been retrofitted into high end hotels or backpackers hostels for language school students or gap year Aussies and Kiwis. It had created a massive street crisis of the homeless. James had seen the numbers rough sleepers more than quadruple in his years as an officer, and it worried him. In a way it bothered him more than the bodies he attended, the deaths he saw, the twisted or sad motives of the killers. At least they had some kind of passion, feeling, not indifference and denial, as it was with this crisis. He’d once spent a few days on the streets at 15, when he ran away, but that had been so long ago, he didn’t think it gave him the right to empathise, but when he looked at Josh, he did think. ‘there but the Grace of God go I.’ He was certainly not holy or priestlike!

“You talk to them, feed them. Like I said, saint,” she accidentally slipped out.

James snorted. “I’m no saint! Far from it!”

Zoe looked at him thoughtfully, before saying, “Your mind is not on today’s games, is it? Before you went off on your white steed, being the white knight.”

James glared at Zoe. “Things go through my head, childhood things. I’m not good at talking much.”

“I never would know what to say if you were,” Zoe replied, but she reached across the board and squeezed his hands. He pulled away from her awkwardly and looked away

“I need to go log the statements, get a crime number, charge the… students,” he said, distant, looking out of the window.

Zoe sighed sadly. He had been more and more battling this depression, or whatever it was, since he’d returned from Spain three years ago. She had been too young and self obsessed to notice at first, and felt bad about that. He probably hadn’t been in a good place when he had gone on the Walk of The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, but at the time it had seemed exciting, and he had talked of leaving the police, and she was wanting him to join her at Oxford, as a theologian. It hadn’t to be. He had returned and instead been promoted, and seemed focused on nothing but work, rubbing colleagues up the wrong way, but solving cases. That was then she suggested their meetups, as Thirsty Meeples had just opened. Lewis came out of retirement and James had been sometimes lit up and happy, and then plunged into these black moods. She had no idea how to help him, she felt so useless. All the qualifications in the world could not give her that instinctive humanity she craved. “In that case, see you next time? If you’re leaving early, I might go browse the second-hand book stalls and junk jewellery, see if I can find something bold and tasteless for my Mum.”

“How is she doing?” he asked, and it seemed like he was interested and cared, but Zoe was not so good at telling. She shrugged.

“She’s… um? She’s doing… well, she’s Mum, you know?”

“Give her my regards.” He managed a proper smile

Zoe nodded. “Will do. Take care James.”

Both stood and embraced across the games table awkwardly, as they saw others do, and felt it was the correct thing to do. But this time, Zoe squeezed a little tighter. “I mean it, take care James. And contact your sister.”

James snorted. “Perhaps,” he said.

*

After he had completed all the paperwork at the station, he returned to Gloucester Green. The market was packed away for another week, and there were few people about in the rain. Pete, Josh and Rob were huddled under their dry and clean sleeping bags with the pile of clean and dry quilts underneath them, their clean and dry clothes in their backpacks. James bought them pakoras, chick peas, and rice from Kebab Kid, along with bottles of water and cups of tea, as he did every three weeks, then took two more hot meals and drinks to the two women and their Alsatians who were bedding across the square by the coach station entrance, outside the public toilets and newsagents, as they did every night. He didn’t know where they went in the daytime, but the CCTV and the lights gave them security and safety from being raped, every night, as did the dogs. He didn’t speak, just quietly placed the food in front of them, along with the lamb chops and extra water he’d got for the dogs.

“Thanks Sir,” said the one girl, shyly, as the other buried her face in a dog.

“Keep warm and dry,” James replied. “Think the rain has finished at least.”

He then returned to Kebab Kid and ordered himself the same, but cold, so he could reheat it in his microwave after walking home. On his walk he tried not to think of his Dad, Nell, or Robbie, or Robert as he had angrily taken to referring to him. 

People were queuing into the cinema to see the latest Marvel movie, and people in costumes were waiting to get into the New Theatre for a Rocky Horror tour, and the restaurants were filled with tourists and wealthier locals, the pubs also full, a roar of drunken happy sounds erupting from them as much as the smokers, taking up the pavement, as he walked George Street.

The old veteran was bedding down on the corner, opposite Waterstones, and James cursed himself for forgetting him, and gave him a tenner and his cigarettes. He nearly was run over by the X5 coach coming in from Cambridge, making him think of his youth. He caught the coach six times a year, for three years, there and back each term, then got the 66, now called the X6, as far as Faringdon to walk to his village, where once he had lived. Nell and he still had to empty that house and put it on the market. Probably worth a lot more than it was when his Dad bought it knock down cheap as it had been falling down, labour of love, his Dad said, working on it every weekend for years. Too far from London or Oxford to fetch an exorbitant price though.

Not that he cared about the money. Some time to mend things would have been priceless.

A ghost tour was starting up outside Trinity as he walked past, and he smirked. Licence to print money, rip of the tourists with any old lies. The Sheldonian was lit up rather spookily though.

He had intended to go home, he had, but his feet took him into the Turf, where he stayed drinking on an empty stomach eavesdropping a conversation on transcendentalism and predestination while knocking back pint after pint.

It was gone one when he got home, and he wondered about the rice, but microwaved and ate it anyway, parked in front of some TV he wasn’t watching while the words of a book passed his eyes.

Why did Robbie dump him? What did he do wrong? Why was he supposed to still be his friend?

It hurt. It hurt like hell!

But, he thought, looking around his shambolic flat in the converted Victorian monstrosity that once a Professor would have had for his entire family and servants, he had a roof over his head, heating, hot water, and space, even though there was just him. And that was far more than many in Oxford could boast.

But all the same, he thought of Pete’s protective arm around Rob and Josh, the way they snuggled together and looked after each other; the way the two girls and their dogs bedded down with hope and love, protecting each other. Were property and belongings so important? We make our own families; Zoe had said that afternoon. He had thought for years he had that with Robbie – mentor, surrogate father, best friend, then lover, all rolled into one. What happened, what did he do, to make Robbie reject him for Laura after all? Did he miss something important? He did that. Zoe would say that was being a gifted child, not picking up normal human cues.

He didn’t want to be a priest, but he longed for the routine of the office, and he had begun to pray again, more and more. For the homeless, for the rich, for Robbie and Laura, for Nell, for himself.

As many a night, he crashed out on his sofa, and awoke in the morning, stiff, cold, his face in congealed chick pea curry, bits of rice stuck to his eyebrow.


	3. Abducted (part one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small trigger warnings for subtle references to child abuse and sexual assault.

Miranda Jones, aged fifteen and three quarters, had been missing for seven hours by the time Uniform requested CID involvement, closer to eight hours by the time DS Maddox was driving DI Hathaway up the Banbury Road heading for Summertown to Miranda’s mother and sole parent, Professor Rose Edwards, Politics Fellow of Lady Julian’s. By the time the grey Vauxhall Astra was crunching over the gravel drive of the old Victorian three story monstrosity in Summerhill Field, the new build flats towering behind it, the front balconies presumably having a good view of the overgrown back garden and back of the house.

They had been silent during the drive, once Maddox had filled her boss in.

“Left for school this morning. Never arrived. Headington Girls School, in – well, in Headington. Took over three hours for the school secretary to get hold of the mother...” she had begun.

“Why?” he’d interrupted.

“Exam invigilating Sir. She’s a professor at Lady Julian’s.”

“Okay. Of course. Exam week.”

Maddox went on, “Friends all claimed not to have seen her in the morning. No problems at home or school...”

“Allegedly.”

Maddox glanced at her boss, confused

“Social services tend to not get involved with College Professors residing in Summertown, and private schools like to sweep problems under the carpet,” Hathaway explained his cynical thinking, making his voice even more posh and sarcastic than usual.

“I suppose that might be true,” Maddox agreed, privately amending, ‘unless they were black’ as she sped up past St Giles and onto the Banbury Road. “Young for her age,” she went on with her summery, “bright in some things, struggling with others. Three friends, all the usual social media. Mum hot on monitoring, but it seems the girls like a kid’s cartoon and share memes mostly, as well as chat about plots and characters and homework. Tech looking into all of it, and monitoring her various pages and her phone. Phone still pinging the nearest mobile base, switched on but no answer. Uniform did the usual house search, nothing. Only school uniform, bag and lunch box missing, plus one of her plushies from the cartoon I mentioned.”

“What is it?”

“My Little Pony.”

“Ah, m’m,” Hathaway replied, as if he knew.

Maddox scrutinised him, could his tastes move from his fantasy graphic novels and crime paperbacks along with his poncey poetry and classics to a little girl’s cartoon? Could it? No, not possible.

“Parents?”

“Mother, divorced when she was a baby. Father at Harvard, she spent summers in the States until she was eight, but he then got married again and new wife doesn’t like her around. According to the Mum, it didn’t bother her, she hated the flights, hated him, hated America, and wanted holidays with her Mum. But that’s just her side, of course. We’ve been trying to contact him all day, but no response.”

“No chance she’s trying to get to her father then?”

“None. Passport in her mother’s desk Sir, besides, we already put out an all ports.”

“So probably nothing good then?” Hathaway bit his lip and stared ahead, wide-eyed, momentarily concentrating on building his mental walls in his memory. These were the worst cases of all. If he didn’t take care of himself, he may be triggered. He wasn’t aware of his sergeant giving him worried sideways glances as she drove. Nor did he have any idea that Robert Lewis had taken Lizzie Maddox into his confidence and told her to look out for him in such cases. He would have been mortified and betrayed had he known.

“No sir,” she agreed, giving absolutely no concern away. She went on, “Well, let’s face it, if Uniform thought she has skipped school or runaway with a boyfriend, we wouldn’t be called in, would we?.”

“Is there a boyfriend?” Hathaway mused. “Or maybe girlfriend? She’s at an all-girls school, after all.”

“No,” Maddox replied primly, annoyed, thinking to herself, _aren’t you too gay for such dated, sexist, assumptions?_

“That her mother or friends know about anyway,” Hathaway amended, and Maddox found she could not argue with that, especially if it were a girlfriend.

“Maybe, but she is more into pony cartoons, pony plushies, and funny memes with ponies, rather than other teenage pursuits.”

Thinking of all the books little Nell read endlessly, along with all the riding lessons and gymkhanas she took part in when slightly older, Hathaway asked, “Did you not like ponies as a girl, then Maddox?”

“Not many ponies in Sheffield Sir. And anyway, she’s not a little girl, is she?”

“No,” Hathaway agreed.

They spend the rest of the drive silent.

*

They were met at the door by a rather pretty constable, his neat ginger hair gelled and a smidgen of eyeliner under his blue eyes. “Taylor, Sir. Sarg. Mother is in the sitting room with PC Wilson. Come through.”

They passed through a large porch with abstract coloured stained glass and imposing brick to an entrance hall of polished black and white chessboard tiles. An oak table sat under a large, wrought silver framed mirror and a mahogany balustraded curved staircase climbed of to the right, carpeted in a plush red. An oak hatstand was opposite the table, reflected in the mirror, a solitary red brolly and white straw sunhat the only things hanging upon it.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Hathaway whispered to himself, the house seemed to be stuck in a time warp. He could even hear the tick of a Grandfather clock, which he saw moments later as he followed Taylor down the slippery black and white hall.

“What was that Sir?”

“Nothing Maddox.”

“If you say so Sir.”

*

A mixed raced woman PC stood up as they entered the sitting room, her blond Afro controlled with four canerow braids. The sitting room was, at least, in the twentieth if not quite the twenty-first, century, with it’s old record player stack and cathoray tube chunky TV on a mahogany stand, two squashy old blue-grey sofas covered in Laura Ashley flower printed scatter cushions and a large glass coffee table, currently bearing a tray with teapot, milk jug and three mugs.

“More tea Professor Andrews?” Taylor asked, swooping down to pick up the tray, giving his partner a meaningful look.

“Tea Sir? Sarg?” she asked.

“Lovely, milk, two sugars, ta,” Maddox said. “You have a lovely home, Professor Andrews,” she added, smiling down at the pale white woman with the neat black bob, who sat on the middle of the smaller sofa, shredding a tissue. From the state of the sofa and cushion, covered with bits of white tissue like concrete covered with the first snow of the season, she had been doing this for some time.

“Thank you,” she replied politely, emptily.

“Big house for the two of you,” Maddox went on, while Taylor prompted of Hathaway,

“Tea Sir?”

“Black, one sugar,” he replied, sitting down opposite the Professor, on the longer sofa, letting out a tiny moan he didn’t realise he was doing as his spine cracked. “Don’t mind me sitting do you, only I do tend to loom somewhat.”

“You can say that; he’s a beanpole,” Maddox added, sitting down next to him, smiling at the distraught mother opposite.

“Are you assessing me, see if I killed her and threw her in the Cherwell? I assure you, the constables have already done so,” Rose Edwards snapped.

“We are here to the contrary – there is no evidence that you had any problems at all in your relationship, and it is unlikely she ran away. Now, I know you’ve been through this is PC Taylor and PC Wilson, but if you could perhaps tell us all you can, that would be a great help.”

Rose swallowed back a sob and held her hand to her mouth

“I’d like to look at her room,” Hathaway added abruptly.

“It’s nothing sinister,” Maddox said to the mother’s alarmed start. “I know the officers had already had a look, but we need to see if you can find a clue to where she’s gone. Even the best in the best mother-daughter relationships, daughters will have secrets. We will do all we can to get your daughter back Rose, I promise. I can call you Rose, can’t I?”

“You think she’s dead?” Rose said, flatly.

“No necessarily, she...” Hathaway began, but his sergeant stood on his toe with her heavy steel capped boot and imperceptibly shook her head at him.

“There are a number of possibilities, and I don’t think it’s helpful to jump straight away to the worst situation,” Maddox said briskly. “She could still just have gone off somewhere, caught a bus, maybe, and is too embarrassed to phone. Happens in the best of teenagers, all those hormones and exam stresses. I managed to get myself to Bolton on the bus once, when I was thirteen, just because my sister had stolen my favourite jumper.”

“Do you think…?” the mother asked, looking up from her permanent tissue shredding.

“I do,” replied Maddox, hoping her smile was not looking as fake as it felt on her face. “Ah here’s Taylor – Paul – with the tea.”

“I’ve found some biscuits, I hope that’s okay Rose,” he said.

Hathaway stood up abruptly. “Wilson, show me the girl’s bedroom.” He turned to Rose with a slight incline of his head, “Excuse us.”

Rose let out another anguished sob. “Her things, she’d hate some man going through them!”

“Don’t worry, he won’t judge, and he’ll be careful. He will not trample on your daughter’s things. But if there is any chance, she maybe has a friend, or a place, that is special, we need to find that. Okay? Now, tell me about her usual routine and your home. I know you’ve been through this all before, but sometimes when we retell something, it helps. So, you just came out of an exam when the school told you she’d not come in? Has she ever skipped school before? Did she seem normal in the morning?”

*

Miranda had seemed her usual self, chatting about her TV show and her friends, and asking if they could go to Headington Starbucks after school. She had been a bit apprehensive about a maths test, as she really struggled with maths, and took one of her toys with her in her schoolbag for luck.

“She’s very…young for her age. She’s ASD, you see. She used to see a therapist at her old school but we were told not to worry about it. I’d rather a girl who likes soft toys that boys.”

“So no boys on the scene, then?”

“God no! I don’t think she’s interested yet. Two if her friends started dating and she was horrified – not because they were gay, just, the dating aspect. Like she couldn’t understand. We had a chat about growing up and them both still being her friends, and that wouldn’t change.”

“Okay. Now, this maths test. How worried was she? Could she skip school to miss it?”

Rose Edwards thought not, she had never missed school unless she was ill, she wanted to face up to her fears, she wanted to learn maths, it just was a struggle for her. Or at least, that was what she always said.

After a while, Maddox has decided either Miranda gave a very good performance or genuinely was very young and naïve for her age. Given that she was on the autistic spectrum, perhaps that was likely? Her ten year old nephew still watched Cbeebies along with BBC4 documentaries. From one extreme to the other, cartoon trains and train documentaries. She knew from the training course she had gone on not autistic people presented like you expected, and although her nephew might be a bit of a stereotype, not everyone was.

Maddox got the distraught mother to give her a little tour of the downstairs and she asked about the house and the set up, to distract her but also to subtly check on anything the uniformed officers would have missed. She knew they wouldn’t. They would have been through every cupboard and wardrobe with a fine tooth-comb, gone up to any attics or lofts and down to any basements, along with checking any out building in the garden. They always told the parents children might be hiding – and occasionally that was true, a younger child upset after being told off or hearing a family row might have hidden themselves and emotionally or physically got themselves stuck there. But more darkly, they were giving the house a forensic once over, looking for any evidence of harm to the child. More than once those who had killed their child reported them missing.

The huge house itself was not always for just the two of them – the downstairs had the living room, kitchen, a small toilet, and the larger old parlour at the front was split into the professor’s study and Miranda’s den, once a play room, and now a chill out space for her and her friends, with an old TV, older than the one in the living room, and her books and ‘still too many toys, she won’t get rid of them. Her friends don’t laugh at her, they are lovely girls’ but most of the soft toys were in her bedroom, on the third floor, where the family and guest bedrooms and bathroom were. The middle floor had 3 student rooms and the fourth bedroom converted to a large kitchen-dining-sitting room. ‘Helps towards to mortgage and school fees.’ All three tenants had gone down now for the summer, and had been gone a week now. She had three language school students arriving in two weeks, for the summer. ‘I let my girls store anything they wanted to leave in one of the guest rooms.’

Maddox listened, and made notes, and could not think why the girl would run away. Unless the father was involved, as he had not responded yet to the messages. The Border Agency had also got back to them and confirmed he had not entered the country, but of course, if he was planning to kidnap his daughter, he’d have flown from the States to Paris or Brussels and caught the Euro Star where border control was less stringent, or even flown anywhere in Europe and driven over. He still had a British passport, after all, and would pass into the country undetected. Maddox did not like all the racism that Brexit stirred up, but it might tighten border controls and protect children a bit more, make it easier to stop drugs coming in too. Her boss would have a fit to here her say so. As for the girl’s father, there was the time difference, and the fact he didn’t seem to want his daughter any more. Hard that, maybe that was why she was so young. But she had seen a therapist soon after the rejection had happened, so she had had support.

She too had a bad feeling about this. She asked Taylor to make more tea. She noticed her boss’s was still untouched.

*

“Sarg?” Wilson, whose name was Kara, called from the hallway, seeing the inspector had not returned to the sitting room, as soon as she had got off her phone.

Maddox smiled weakly. “Excuse me Rose,” and went out to the hall, closing the door firmly behind her.

“What Wilson?”

“That was the front desk sergeant. Someone came in five minutes ago with Miranda’s phone, he said he found it an hour ago, out walking his dog in the playing fields behind Summerfields Primary School, in a bin in the entrance, which is not five minutes from here.”

“Show me. We’ll look, okay. Hold on. Sir!” she called up the stairs. With no reply, she began to run up them, two at a time. Goodness the house was big. She had to go all the way up to a second flight as he couldn’t hear her and found her boss sitting on the floor, surrounded by both handwritten and printed-out A4 white pages.

He looked up. “Maddox? I was looking for something to explain her mind, she writes fan fiction, but no diary.”

“She probably has an online diary Sir.”

“What is the point of that? A diary is private.”

“You can, there are all kinds of encrypted journals, but her age, they want an audience, as many likes, or upvotes, or kudos as they can get.”

“Glory?” Hathaway asked, curiously, before shaking his head. “Never mind. Did the tech find anything?”

“Not yet. But Sir. We have a lead. Someone just handed in her phone. I’m taking Wilson and we’re going to look where it was found.”

“Right. And get on to Tech on your way – I want to know her fan fiction site and her pseud, and if she has one of these journals. Also, get her friends interviewed again, cherché l’homme Maddox, or more likely cherché la femme, I am sure she has a girlfriend, but possibly a boyfriend, all these...” a pink flush crept up across his cheeks.

“Teenagers who write fan fiction smut probably don’t do it for real, Sir. Why? Is it explicit?”

“It’s, um… ponies!” he blushed some more.

“Right,” Maddox said, feeling a little discombobulated herself. She was proud of thinking of the word, must be her boss’s vocabulary sticking in her brain. Mind you, she was so discombobulated, she later realised, she forgot to tell him two of Miranda’s best friends were an item. “I’m going to Summerfield playing fields, if you need me. Shouldn’t be long. Taylor is with the mother.”

“Maddox?”

“Yes?”

“Our team, DCs not Uniform, to interview the girls. I want them to really concentrate if they are covering – it might be something innocent, nothing to do with her going missing, but school friends can be so tight and protective of one another, and don’t always see the big picture, just their promises. As soon as. Also, I think we should contact BBC Oxford and get this out on the news tonight. And get her picture out on our Twitter and Facebook feeds asap. I have a bad feeling.”

“Sir.”

Once she had gone, Hathaway stood up and stretched his back, raising his arms above his head. He saw something glint. Curious, he went to the window. The window over-looked the block of flats, 6 stories, yellow brick and very new. He could see more going up in the distance. The kind of flats with gated communities, a shared pool and gym, not the council kind, despite the city crying out for affordable rented properties for the ordinary people. Each flat had a large balcony, and the balcony on the fifth floor was where he had seen the glint from. Instinctively he stepped sideways, so the pink curtains shielded him.

Binoculars?

He took out his phone, it would not hurt to see who lived there, in fact all the residents this side of the block

*

Maddox and Wilson crunched their way back down the gravel drive and out onto the street, following the few metres back onto the Banbury Road. They crossed the small road and headed down Banbury Road back towards Summertown shops and the city centre.

“Look, here’s a Pelican crossing. She probably crosses here to catch the bus to school,” Wilson said. “Shall we cross it Sarg?”

Maddox consulted the satnav map up on her phone. “Yeah, we need to anyway, the playing field where the phone was found is on this side of the road.

There was a short walk along the Banbury Road until they came to another drive, an entrance to the primary school, a concrete and terrapin retrofitted 1960s primary school, with new higher security gates.

“Satnav wants us to go through here,” Maddox said, looking up annoyed from her phone.

Wilson sucked her teeth in annoyance, then looked around. “Here Sarg, there’s a little alley down the side, the playing fields are even signposted,” she said, holding up her flash light to the brown sign. Maddox put on her phone’s torch app and the two women weaved their way through the diagonally parallel bars to stop bikes getting through and walked through the narrow, dark alley. There was a strong overpowering smell of jasmine, which did not quite cover up the smell of urine and vomit.

“Lovely,” Maddox said.

“Charming,” agreed Wilson, her torch picking out a used condom among the clumps of mud and may blossom scattered like confetti.

“And I thought this was the posh end of the city,” Maddox quipped.

“Well, it is mostly, but even posh kids are known to get up to antisocial behaviour. The only difference is Daddy turns up at the nick with an expensive barrister who picks us to pieces and the Chief Super sends down a message to just give them a stern warning and let them go. Not even a formal caution, least we ruin the little darlings future career.”

Maddox laughed. She liked Wilson. “I love your hair colour, how do you get it so natural looking?” she asked, spooked by the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere, wanting to keep the conversation going.

“Oh? My hair? It is natural. Blond hair, and freckles, me and my brother, comes from my Mum. The damn curls come from my Dad, of course. Yeah, I know the blond must come from him, somewhere down the line, but we don’t talk about that,” Wilson replied, kissing her teeth at a dark moment in her ancestor's life.

“Yeah,” Maddox acknowledged emptily. “Nice though.”

“Rather have inherited the whole lot, Euro hair is so much easier to manage. What do you use?”

“Oh, just coconut oil and leave it be mostly. Suppose if I had to get one of those hats on top, I’d struggle. Had it short when I was in uniform.”

“My Nan still does my braids like I’m six. But it’s nice. She’s in a home, dementia, but the doctors say her doing my hair is kind of therapy. I don’t know if she knows how old she is, where she is, which daughter or granddaughter she is braiding, but it makes her happy and I can get the stupid hat on. Sorry, over sharing. It’s the dark, spooks you doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Maddox agreed as they came out of the dark leafy, smelly tunnel into a squishy, wet field. Their torches picked out football goal posts in the middle, some swings and a slide and climbing frame in the far corner, and a wooden more adventure climbing frame in the opposite far corner.

*

“Sir?” Taylor interrupted Hathaway’s thoughts. He was sitting in the living room, sipping cold tea. Rose Edwards was now curled up on the other sofa, having taken a herbal sleeping tablet. Taylor had covered her with a colourful knitted patchwork blanket he had found in the den.

“M’m? Yes?”

“I need you to authorise our overtime. We’ve been here well over eight hours now.”

Hathaway nodded. “Of course. Any news on the door to door or the interviews?” as he asked, he looked across to check the mother was sleeping.

“Officers with the first of the families now. And officers still at the flats,” he inclined his head in the direction of the block. “Shall I organise some food for us. She’s not eaten since we’ve got here, and nor have we, and it might be a long night. That is, if you want us to stay here as the FLOs.”

Hathaway looked thoughtfully as the sleeping mother. “I doubt she’ll sleep long. Order something vegetarian, I didn’t see a single meat or fish product in the kitchen.”

“Right you are. Do you fancy anything?”

Hathaway thought for a moment. “How about an Indian? Everyone likes curry, and lots of vegetarian options.”

“I saw some takeaway leaflets on the kitchen notice board, I’ll see if there is anywhere she uses.”

“Miranda loves saag aloo and daal,” Rose murmured, half asleep, but obviously half aware of the conversation.

*

Having realised the playing field had three entrances with bins, and bins were also near both lots of playing equipment, the two officers decided to check out each bin in turn, looking careful all around as they criss-crossed the field.

There was nothing to the right of the field, and nothing on the wooden adventure frame. As they walked to the other group of play equipment, Maddox looked up at the large, high wall which flanked the far end of the field.

“What’s on the other side of that?” she asked.

“Oh, that is our famous Cuttleslowe Wall Sarg.” Wilson said, voice dripping with fake, ironic, pride.

“What’s that then? I guess the Cuttleslowe Estate is the other side?”

“Oh yeah, when they build it, originally as a council estate, the posh university professors had a fit, they didn’t want darling Tarquin and Portia playing with Dave and Sharon, so they insisted on building a wall to separate town from gown, literally.”

“And the city council let them? Jeez, only in Oxford.”

“Right, Sarg… Hey, what’s that?”

Wilson’s torch beam picked out a small fluffy toy, a pink pony with a mass of crazy curls as a mane, the torch lighting it up like a spotlight on stage as it sat in the middle of the seesaw.

“Bleeding Pinkie Pie,” Maddox said.

Wilson looked at the detective. “I won’t ask how you know. Sarg. But look.” The young officer pulled out her phone and thumbed it. She showed Maddox a picture of a picture – Maddox remembered seeing it in the den. Four girls, all sitting on a sofa, all holding up My Little Pony plushies. Miranda was clearly holding a Pinkie Pie the same size, wearing a plaited friendship bracelet in green, purple and grey as a necklace. As was the toy on the see-saw.

“It’s hers,” Maddox agreed. “Separate, let’s give everywhere a good a search as possible. We’re looking for a pale pink school backpack aren’t we?”

Wilson swiped through her phone. A large pink bag with tiny white non franchised unicorns, a smaller lunch bag in matching design, and a purple cagoule, probably folded but in the picture a smiling Miranda was wearing it. She didn’t look fifteen, Maddox reflected to herself.

*

PC Miah knocked on the second flat on the fifth floor. The first had been empty. The door opened a crack with the chain.

“What you want?” a man snarled, a white, dishevelled, and frankly, quite smelly, man. The greasy smell of oily takeaways and unwashed hair assaulted Miah’s nose and bile rose in his mouth. He would not be sick, he was a police officer after all, but he was surprised. This was a gated community, and so far the people had been single academics or couples, mostly European or Chinese. Here was a white English man who, forgive his prejudice, belonged in Barton or Kidlington.

“A schoolgirl went missing this morning Sir. We are just asking all the people in the neighbourhood if they have seen or heard anything.”

“Oh. Saw it on the news just now I think. Pretty girl? Half caste?”

Miah winced inwardly. “Mixed race, yes. Have you seen anything?”

“Not been out today,” he said and went to slam the door. Miah was too quick for him and stopped it with his foot.

“Just a moment Sir. Is this your flat?”

“Flat sitting, ain’t I?”

“Can you prove that?”

“Why? What’s that got to do with a missing girl. You pigs are all alike. This is my brother’s house. He’s letting me stay here.”

“And your name is?”

“Terry. Terrance Lane.”

“And your brother Sir?”

“Wal. Wallace Lane. Professor Lane. He’d a Lonsdale Man, alright? Chemistry. He’s clever. He borrowed me van to go on holiday, Oxford profs getting three months bloody holidays. That okay Cont… sable?”

“Thank you Sir. And you will be in, if we need to ask any more questions. We believe the people on this side of the block have a view of where the girl was last seen. Sometimes people can suddenly remember. If you do, please call us on 101.”

“Sure. Whatever,” the man said, before slamming the door.

As he climbed the flight to the sixth floor, Miah requested PNC checks on the Lane brothers.

*

“Hathaway,” James answered his job phone to an unknown mobile as he sat on the sofa with Taylor, sitting opposite the mother, Rose, while they ate various curries. Only Taylor ate heartily, having been the FLO at the house with Professor Edwards since around midday, and it was now almost midnight, and all he’d had in that time was many cups of tea. Rose, under the Inspector’s solicitous if intense gaze, forced herself to eat, as he had pointed out, she needed to have her strength for when they found her daughter. They were making sure they saved some for Maddox and Wilson, still exploring the area where Miranda’s phone had been found.

“Sir, this is PC Miah, I’m in the block of flats opposite.”

“Hold on Miah,” James said, standing and walking out of the room. “Go ahead.”

“I was doing door to door, when I interviewed a rather hostile man. Not a resident. Claims to be house-sitting for his brother. I requested background checks on both. But I’m now in the stairwell on the same floor, basically two windows along from the flat windows. I was wondering, Sir, if you minded going into the girl’s bedroom, I want to see if I can see you.”

“Hold on, it’s two flights up,” James said, taking the stairs three at a time, with his long legs.

Ash Miah listening to the Inspector’s breathing as he seemed to run up the stairs. Then he saw a light come on in a window of the dark, large house the flats over-looked, and a shadowy tall, thin figure of the detective. Bingo!

“I can see you Sir. I would imagine, with binoculars or a telescope, someone might watch the girl very easily. If you would might switching the light off Sir, I will shine my torch and you tell me if you can see me, is that alright Sir?”

“Uh-huh,” James agreed, stepping back to the door and switching off the light. He saw a beam of light on the second row from the top, a little along from the first window light. “I see you Constable. Good job, by the way. Bright thinking. You’re to get those background checks sent to me as soon as, won’t you?”

“Of course, Sir. Don’t want to be stereotypical, but the guy was smelly and creepy and wouldn’t open the door, let alone let me in. But then his brother has borrowed his van to ‘go on holiday’. S’why I asked for both checks, init.”

“Good job, Miah. Thank you. I have another call.” James switched calls. “Hathaway.”

It was Maddox, telling him they had found the school bag and the toy, asking for a full search at first light and a full door to door on all the streets surrounding the playing fields as soon as it was respectable enough to knock on the public’s front doors of a morning.

“Good work, tell Wilson for me, well done too,” he said.

Maddox hung up and smiled at Wilson. “He says well done to both of us,” she said, thinking, that there had been a time, before the previous Chief Super had dragged Robbie Lewis out of retirement, when he would not have bothered with these little people skills so much. Or delegated. He’d have been out here himself. She missed Lewis still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, PC Ash Miah is DS Ahmed Miah’s, from Midsomer, little brother; if you are reading DS Winter's companion piece :)
> 
> Plus usual yadda about neurological illness which gives me both tremors and spams, and brain fog, so even though I have proof read this a few times, there will be typos, random swapped words (my brain, seriously!) that I will have missed - please do point them out if you see one. Thanks :)


	4. Abducted (part two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight trigger warnings below to subtle references to child abuse and rape survival and threats.

The early hours of the morning were always quiet on the CID floor, even the MCU. There was a couple of officers who worked nights, actioning requests for tech and CCTV and ‘paperwork’ other officers had put up on HOLMES too, and sometimes Hathaway would see one of these twilight zone staff passing by on the way for a coffee or toilet break, just like he could sometimes also hear the distance buzz of an industrial hoover. Sometimes he saw the office cleaners, and would always smile awkwardly.

He was at his desk, print outs of all the interviews so far conducted, all gone through and some details underlines, and notes made. A flashing icon on the corner of his screen showed someone had responded to his request on any CCTV on her route from home to school – traffic cameras, bus cameras, shop or college or city centre – if she had got that far, she had to get off the bus by the Broad and walk through the pedestrian area to the High to catch a bus up to Headington hill and her school. At the moment, though, Hathaway was following her fan fiction leads, diving into the worlds of Tumblr, Discord, and the like. He wasn’t entirely ignorant of fan fiction, rather an avid consumer of Star Trek old rec arts sites as a student in the 90s, and he occasionally looked on Archive Of Our Own, mostly for fantasy and science fiction, but he preferred his work published. He was discovering a world of difference between a fan fiction written by an adult Star Trek fan and a young girl into cartoons. The amount of darkness out there, for a start, along with sex, was an eye-opener. Being at a boys’ boarding school, the world view of the teenage girl was a closed book to him, apart from his sister, but he had already left for Cambridge by the time Nell hit thirteen.

Miranda Jones called herself Blueberry Pie and wrote almost exclusively Pinkie Pie/Rainbow Dash romance stories. Her mother was under the illusion that she found her friends lesbian relationship hard to relate too, but apparently, she was fine with sentient lesbian pastel coloured ponies. Hathaway had been known to, embarrassingly, enjoy the show, when introduced to it by his nieces; he found the world building and its internal logic far superior to many cartoons, but to imagine… that! It went way beyond his imagination!

He closed down the open tabs. Blueberry Pie got into many discussions about how her ship was true, and others weren’t, and also a lot of theories about time travel and how she ‘headcanoned’ Pinkie being pregnant when she turned up in Ponyville and was Peachie Pie’s mother, but there no direct contact with other fans, and a few strokes of the keyboard brought up IP addresses of fans of similar ages all over the world, and then actual households of those in the United Kingdom and her Territories about the world, the few remaining splashes of pink, he thought cynically, as he found one of her friends in St Lucia, another on the Falklands. They were all mostly probably other girls or boys in the younger end of the teens. No one had used My Little Pony fandoms as a tool to groom her. Earlier he had spotted a few other girls being lured by someone claiming to be Twilight Darkness and a 15 year old girl but whose IP showed an address of a single occupant, a 58 year old male paedophile on probation – this had required a few flags on the system and an email to the probationary service, and then a quick trip to the gents to throw up.

Now, he stretched and moaned, before picking up the statements again, and Miah’s reports on the Lane brothers, and all that had been found. The icon in the corner of his screen still flashed, as he again went through all that had been found about the Lanes.

Former Staff Sergeant Terrance Lane was 63, had an honourable discharge from the British Army some decades ago. He had been injured in Belfast during the Troubles, and switched to being a Quartermaster, before leaving at 50. He had a record of a few drunk and disorderly and for anti-social behaviour and begging, all resulting in a night in the cells and a release with a caution. He had been living on and off the streets since his discharge, as well as had work as a labourer on many farms in the area, sometimes providing accommodation. He currently was living in a caravan in a field belonging to a farmer in Midsomer County, some way off the main A4130 that ran from Oxford through the county and into Midsomer and the small county town of Causton. He was there with the permission of the farmer, who used the field as a campsite in the summer, and Lane senior had a post office box in Midsomer Deverall.

Hathaway got up and paced. They had a hideous boys’ school there, when his school, Radley College, played against them, whether rugby or cricket, it had always been a bitter, nasty local derby. They always fancied themselves a wannabe Eton, and looked down on Radley’s history in the Performing and Visual Arts and Music, along with its larger than usual intake of black and Asian wealthy pupils.

He rubbed at his face and punched himself in the side of the head. “God, take a break Hathaway!” he told himself. “Children equal triggers, and that is what is happening, childhood memories are triggers too. Coffee man, get yourself coffee!” He looked up and saw a smiling black man in the door of his office, his hand paused midway to knock. Hathaway felt himself blush at being caught talking to himself in his office at – dear God! – 4.50 am. No one had the right to be looking so happy and relaxed as this officer did at such a stupid time of the morning.

“Can I help??” Hathaway snapped.

“Sorry Sir. I sent you an email and you haven’t actioned it. I saw you were still in the building so was just making sure…”

James eyes glanced at the screen and the ignored flashing icon. How did he miss it? “You are?” he asked sternly.

“DS Grey Sir. I do the nights here. I’ve been going through CCTV in the media room. I found something, well I’m not sure Sir, but it might be relevant. As I saw you were still in, I emailed you the footage Sir. I’d really appreciate your opinion Sir.”

*

When Maddox got into work at 0820 she found her boss asleep, head on his desk, hunched over in his chair, arm flung above him, slightly drooling. A full cup of tea was beside him. She picked it up before she shook his shoulder,

“Sir?” she said gently.

He murmured in his sleep, a startled, frightened, “No, I don’t like it, stop…” but didn’t actually wake. Maddox looked at the incident boards he’d brought into their office. There was a picture of an older white man taken from arrest records, with the name Terrance Lane and a question mark written beside him. Next to his photo was a printout of another man, a distortion of the first, in the gown of a Fellow, the kind of a photo that you found in a college prospectus. This was Professor Wallace Lane. Under them was a capture from CCTV of a blue van and then an arrow and a map of the north of Midsomer, the county to the south of Oxfordshire. A tiny lane and some fields off the A4130 was circled with a big question mark, as was a picture of the block of posh flats behind the missing girl’s home.

The other incident board was full of photos of Miranda Jones’ friends, and printouts of social media and fan fiction pseuds and arrows joining her real life and online friends, where there was an overlap. Two of her best friends were put together circled with two pink women’s signs, the old sign used by lesbians when Maddox had been at university in the ’90s, but instead of circles, her sleep deprived closeted boss had put two pink love hearts. He would be cross with himself when he awoke. She knew the gossip in the nick about him, and knew it was the members of the Gay Police Association who were the cruellest, saying he was so far in the closet he was in Narnia, and called him the Ice Queen, even to his face, knowing he would never pull rank because that would mean admitting something. Personally, she thought he might be demi and Lewis was it for him. Which was a shame, she liked and respected Lewis, and had only guessed at what happened, and why Robbie left her boss for Hobson long before she came down south.

She went to her desk and switched on the monitor, to see if his entered actions on the case would make more sense that his incident boards.

Fortunately, they did. When Maddox awoke him an hour later, with a large cappuccino and a bacon roll, she had actioned all she could and Moody was sorting out arrest and search warrants and liaising with Midsomer as she popped out to French patisserie on St Aldates.

“Sir? Inspector Hathaway?”

“M’m? What?” he lifted his head, his cheek clearly showing the imprint of the notepad he’d fallen asleep on, far more so that his barely there, super blond, lily-white arsed, stubble. He looked about him, panicked, and sat up, glancing around him, seeing only his sergeant and the office door shut.

“Must have closed my eyes for a moment. What time is it?”

“It’s nine thirty Sir. You’ve had all of three hours sleep, going by your last actions inputted on the computer network. Warrants being sorted out as we speak. Breakfast Sir,” she added, putting down the large coffee and the paper bag.

Hathaway opened the back, and quickly closed it, going even whiter than he usually was, if that were possible. “Feel a bit queasy,” he said. He took a sip of his coffee, but obviously the milk foam and hot milk was too much for either his stomach or his state of mind, and he rushed off towards the Gents.

Being here before, Maddox reached into the bottom drawer of her boss’s desk, and retrieved his washbag and a folded clean shirt and followed him, waiting in the corridor. Admittedly, he didn’t usually vomit. She could hear retching in the small Gents in this corridor.

He opened the door, and seemed startled to see her there, but grabbed his things, and disappeared back inside. Maddox nipped out again, to get water, Redbull, and espresso, and possibly a tie, going by the puke stain on the one he had on.

*

By ten her boss was almost human, sitting at his desk alternatively sipping water and Redbull, at least he was shaved, in clean shirt and tie, and hopefully clean underwear and socks, at least, Maddox always assumed spares were in his washbag. He had just got off the phone, requesting for the time being Midsomer did nothing but watch out Terrance Lane’s van, which his brother Wallace had borrowed allegedly to go on holiday. He stared into space, not looking at his sergeant sitting at her desk, going over the information they had on the brothers before they asked Terrance to come down to the station. They were still waiting on the warrants.

“Maddox,” he said quietly.

“Sir?”

“This was before your time, a few years ago now, but it was all over the news, I believe.”

“What was Sir?”

“The Crevecoeur Case.”

“That was the paedo lord, right? Decades of abuse? Somewhere north west of Oxford, the grand old house and its estate, yeah?”

“My father was estate manager there, until I was 12.”

“Okay,” Maddox replied carefully, not wanting to give away what Robbie had already told her.

“I was there, but not an arresting officer. Not on that case. A murder case revealed it. Because at least one victim chose to remain silent,” he drawled.

_Well,_ Lizzie thought, remembering her conversation with Lewis, _perhaps if the officer and survivor in question had said something during the open murder case, he might have prejudiced justice for the other victims and survivors, current and past._ But she could say nothing, as she was supposed to know nothing. “What are you saying, Sir?” she asked even more carefully.

“Two men in their sixties, one of whom may have taken Miranda Jones. As you have pointed out, Maddox, I have had three hours sleep. I’d like you to take the lead on the questioning, please, and I’d like you to bring him in and oversee the start of the search, once the warrants arrive. I’ll try to catch 40 more winks and eat, until then.”

“It’s always good to take care of yourself, Sir,” she replied neutrally. Staying awake chasing leads and going through statements and CCTV all night when there were perfectly qualified night teams to do so, was not really taking care of oneself, she did not say.

Just then there was a knock at the door, and their boss, Chief Superintendent Moody, popped in, looking huge in the office. Maddox didn’t think there could be anyone taller that her boss, and then Innocent took promotion and went home to her childhood county, and Moody arrived from the Met. Not only was he very tall, he was broad, and seemed to fill the office with testosterone and masculinity and Maddox wished she didn’t miss Tony so much.

“How you both doing? Feel better from your nap James? Haven’t we had this conversation before, about pushing yourself too much?”

“Sir?”

Moody waved a folder. “Who gets these? Arrest and search warrants.”

“I do, Sir. The inspector is wating for a call from Midsomer,” Lizzie quickly lied. She stood up and reached for the documents.

Moody looked down at the very white, almost pale grey, inspector, and accepted the sergeant’s white lie. “Okay. That’s good. Keep me informed.” He slapped the folder into Lizzie’s waiting hand, and left, closing the door quietly.

“Want me to get you something to eat before I leave, Sir?”

“I’ll go out myself, get some fresh air. Have him back by midday, Maddox.”

“Fine.”

“Oh, Maddox?”

“Sir?”

“Take PC Miah, if he’s available, it was his call.”

Lizzie paused at the door, and nodded, then left.

*

Hathaway did not get anymore sleep in the end, but he went for a walk in the Meadow, to get his head in order, after buying himself a sandwich and crisps. He fed the ducks his crusts, smoked three fags, and went back at just before noon.

Meanwhile, Maddox and Miah had a less relaxing morning. They arrived to wake up a sleepy Terrance Lane, who was confused, and even more angry and aggressive. At least, Miah noticed, he had used his brother’s bathroom and no longer smelt or looked as rank or greasy as when Miah had questioned him the night before.

Maddox kept calm and polite, and handed him the search warrant, before even mentioning they had one for his arrest. She was hoping to get him to the station voluntarily.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s my brother’s place,” he said, looking at the document, all bluster and machismo vanishing in a puff of smoke.

“It’s all above board. You can of course phone him, and let him know.”

“He don’t hold with mobiles, do he? He says modern devices destroy brain cells or something.”

“I thought he was a chemist?” Miah asked cheekily. Maddox decided she liked him.

“He is. He don’t mean physical like, he means concentration and intelligence and that, like every year’s intake is less imaginative and clever and needs to be told what to do more; that’s what he says.”

“Perhaps you have his hotel number?” Maddox suggested, while Miah rang the search team, and buzzed them in from flat 602.

“Dunno know where he’s gone, all I know is he said he wanted to get away into the country, maybe do some fishing and that. I got no work and thought, sure, I’ll house sit. Me and him, we don’t talk much, too different really. Oh, come in officers, why not,” he snarled, as Maddox followed Miah in and propped open the door.

Once the officers were going through the flat with a delicate fine toothcomb, Maddox suggested Lane would be more comfortable down at the station answering a few questions about his brother, his van, and the fact the flat overlooked the missing girl’s bedroom.

“What the fuck? I don’t wanna, like. Why should I? I ain’t done not’in.”

“It would be much better if you agreed to come,” Miah said mildly.

“Why the fuck should I, you –” he then let out a string of racially motivated insults towards both Maddox and Miah, mostly at Miah.

“In that case,” Maddox said, rolling her eyes at Miah, “Terrance Lane, I am arresting you on suspicion of kidnap, you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention something when questioned that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

“Fuck!” Lane responded before Maddox had finished, and made to run. He only got halfway to the stairs before Miah caught him and cuffed him behind his back.

“Come one, sunshine,” Miah said, heading for the lift, where Maddox had already got to and pressed the call button.

*

While still in the Meadow, Hathaway got a call from another unknown number. He flicked away his cigarette and answered.

“Hathaway.”

“Sir. This is DS Winter from Causton in Midsomer. Our boys picked up your flagged vehicle in Midsomer Deverell – you’d got it going down the A4130 before you lost it? We’ve picked it up in a garden centre and have an unmarked car following it. It is currently in a field belonging to Jones Farm between Deverell, Marsh Wood, and Causton. The field is used as a campsite in the summer, but currently just one old caravan there. I discreetly spoke to the farmer, he rents the field and facilities to a Terrance Lane, who sometimes labours for him. Odd sort, he said, keeps himself to himself, drinks too much, bit violent. Has a history here for drunk and disorderly. He’s logged as your person of interest. Do you want me to approach the caravan?”

“Any sign of a girl in the van?”

“No, just an old man in tweeds, doesn’t look like the Lane in his file, too smart. I’m keeping my distance, but I haven’t seen anything but him – no sign of any movement in the van or caravan at all.”

“Okay, keep me informed. We’ve got Terrance Lane in custody, we’re about to interview him. His brother might also be a person of interest, but he’s a Fellow of Lonsdale, so we need to tread carefully and need more evidence. I do think that is who you are watching though.”

Winter smirked; Hathaway could hear the smirk. “Read you loud and clear, Sir. So I’ll stay here, then,” he promised, hanging up.

*

Hathaway checked all the media feeds before he joined Maddox in the interview room.

“Hello, Mr Lane. I’m DI Hathaway. Just ignore me, I’m just here to listen.” He pulled up a chair and sat next to Maddox, facing Lane’s duty solicitor, a middle-aged woman in a blue trouser suit, her blond curls bouncing around her head with energy, but the face underneath looked harassed and tired, like she had far too many cases on the go.

“As I was saying to your sergeant, Inspector, my client knows nothing of a missing girl,” she began immediately.

“As I was about to say,” Maddox said, glancing at her boss, who nodded, “We have some CCTV evidence that indicates that Mr Lane’s van might have been used to take the girl from the backs of Summerfield playing fields opposite her home. The flat Mr Lane is currently staying in overlooks the girl’s bedroom.”

“I only got there a couple of days ago,” Lane said, looking at his solicitor.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said.

Maddox opened a page on her tablet and spun it around across the table. It showed an enlarged picture of a blue van, the number platers clearly visible, the time and date of the CCTV camera on the Banbury Road clearly showing the previous morning’s time at 0754. “Is this your van?”

“Yeah… but…” Lane stopped as his solicitor put a hand on his arm.

“I need to see the evidence you have and confer with my client, please.”

“Of course,” Hathaway said, standing up. “Email or print out?”

“I don’t seem to have my laptop here, Inspector,” the solicitor said, smiling emptily.

*

“What do you think?” Hathaway asked Maddox as they stood by the printer, Maddox putting everything into a brown evidence folder.

“Well, he’s a drunk, Miah says he was unwashed before, certainly racist, and a bit angry with the world, and it’s his van, but he looked genuinely shocked to see the van there on the junction. He definitely has only been in the property three days at the most. So, maybe he an accessory, or maybe a stooge?”

“Yes. I think I will get over to Lonsdale and interview his brother’s colleagues. I think he’s playing dumb either due to helping or perhaps due to realising why his brother wanted his van, and is running on some form of family loyalty. Are you up to concluding the interview alone?”

“Fine, Sir. And for what it’s worth, I agree. All the search showed up was a bit of weed, which might explain his hostility last night. Tech are getting the old desktop computer though.”

“No sign of pornography or anything else incriminating towards the brother?”

“None yet, Sir. They are still there though. He still has dial up though, so unlikely he was been downloading much. Tech have taken a bag of memory sticks, old fashioned discs, and even prehistoric floppies, so who knows what they will find? They took a bag of VHS videos too. We’ll have wait on what they find.”

“Good. Midsomer have an officer on observation of the van, which is outside Terrance’s caravan. Spring that on him, watch him carefully, if he’s being used, he’ll have no idea his brother is there. I think I’ll check with Moody to see if the warrant includes his rooms at college.”

*

Moody had had the foresight to add the Professor’s college rooms to the initial warrant, and had a duplicate warrant waiting. Taking forensic search officers with him, Hathaway presented the warrant with a flourish to the Master of Lonsdale, Dame Alexandra Reece. She was horrified at the police descending on her college with a warrant, but quickly dispatched a Porter to show in the uniformed officers to Lane’s rooms and summoned her Scout to provide tea and scones for herself and Hathaway, happy to answer any questions, if only to find out what has been going on.

“He’s always been an odd duck,” she said. “Been a Fellow since my Father’s day. My Father was Master here in the late ’80s, early ’90s,” she added. “We pride ourselves on a good relationship with the Oxfordshire Police here,” she said, pointing to a picture on the wall. If Hathaway had been any other contemporary at his station, he would not have had any idea of whom she spoke, but he could see a picture of Morse arm in arm with the then Master of Lonsdale,

“Of course, Chief Inspector Morse was up here, wasn’t he?” Hathaway said.

“He was indeed, with my Father. I am surprised you have heard of him.”

“His reputation precedes him.” Hathaway allowed himself a slight quirk of his lips in an almost two second smile, and explained, “He was my former Inspector’s boss.”

“Ah, that explains it. Can you tell me what Wal is supposed to have done?”

“All I can say is that he is a person of interest in an open case.”

“Not that missing schoolgirl?”

“What makes you say that Master?”

“Well, I don’t want to make baseless accusations…” Reece trailed off, looking away. “Ah, here’s tea. Thank you Becca,” she said, to the Scout as she backed into the parlour, carrying a tray with teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl, hot water jug, two cups and saucers, and a plate of fruit scones with a knife and butter dish, with two more plates underneath. “Lovely. Do thank Cook, the scones look magnificent.”

Becca smiled and put the tray down and left.

“Shall I be mother?” Reece asked, once the door was closed.

Hathaway gestured to the tray.

“Tea, milk, sugar?”

“Black, just one sugar please,” he replied, and accepted the cup.

“Can I tempt you to a scone?”

“Perhaps later. However, it might help if you could describe what kind of person he is? You did not seem surprised, and had suspicions?”

“Ah…” Reece looked down, and buttered herself a scone and took a bite, perhaps for fortification. “Wal has been here donkey’s years, a full Fellowship, impossible to shift. His understanding of inorganic chemistry is second to none, he has many papers and books to his name, and students who have gone on to be famous on BBC4, inspired by his teaching. He’s sung in the choir, taught, and researched, and written, and seemed a man out of time, belonging not even to the 20th or even 19th, but perhaps Lonsdale’s beginnings as a religious institute. An academic monk, if you will. Until recently, that is…”

“You’ve had suspicions? Of paedophilia? You should have…!”

“Oh no! No no Inspector! Nothing like that, just… regrets, the wish for a life with a wife and a child… it’s hard, without betraying a confidence.”

“If you are at all concerned, I think you ought to tell me, don’t you?”

“Are you a graduate entry, Inspector? One of ours, or a redbrick or new university perhaps?”

Hathaway snorted. “I’m not sure what that has anything to do with anything? But I’m a Cambridge man.”

Reece tutted in disappointment, before saying, “Oh, well you know how it is, Cambridge is almost on the same level of traditional absurdity as here. I have to tread even more careful that any previous Master, naturally. But Cambridge, of course, not only has had woman masters already, it even has a black woman Master, so… A Fellow’s confidence is sacrosanct.”

“Indeed, but a girl is missing, a young girl. Master, young even for her young age, naïve and with special needs.”

Just then the Porter knocked on the door. “Forgive me Master, but this young constable needs to talk to the Inspector.”

“Excuse me,” Hathaway said. He had a quick word in the corridor, and then returned. “I think you need to tell me all you know and suspect, Master, as pictures of the missing girl have been found on his old PC he has in his rooms.”

“Oh!” Reece put her hand to her mouth. She took a sip of tea, and then began, as Hathaway sat back down, “He has an inoperable cancerous brain tumour, probably three to six months left. He no longer teaches, but we let him still come in, out of respect. He has been behaving more and more oddly, talking of his dream daughter… something to do with a student he had really taken to decades ago, an Afro-Caribbean student! I’m sure he won’t harm her!” she cried to Hathaway’s retreating back.

*

After instructing the search team to continue, Hathaway hurried to his car, checking his phone, sending a quick email to Maddox to get her to the John Radcliffe to confirm the tumour, and inputting the data on the actions and information folders on the case page on HOLMES 2, before checking for updates.

There were two. The suspect, as he was most definitely a suspect now, had no binoculars in his flat, and either never had them, or had taken them with him. It looked less likely that he had been a peeping tom, whatever else he was and had done, as the next-door neighbour in 601, curious about the search, had revealed themselves to be a dedicated twitcher. He had not been in the previous evening as he had got a text alert, telling him a water pipit, which had not been seen down south for a long time, climate change was suspected, that it was now too warm for them, and he had rushed out to Port Meadow. But he confirmed that earlier in the day he was watching sparrow fledglings learn to fly in the house gardens the flat overlooked.

Secondly, Miranda Jones Father, Professor Dwayne Jones, had finally got in touch, worried and scared. He and his new wife has taken their RV and gone into the mountains for a few days and had no signal. A FLO – Taylor - had been assigned to now keep him updated on their progress.

As Hathaway got to his car, he was just opening the door, when his phone rang. He sat down and answered it.

“Hathaway.”

“Winter here Sir. He left a while ago, I managed to follow him to Midsomer Deverell’s Waitrose and all around it and back to the caravan, still no sighting Sir, but among his shopping he bought cupcakes, crisps, cola, a soft toy, and a child’s cartoon DVD. Do you want us to move in Sir?”

Hathaway’s mind was racing. “No, wait, get the uniforms nearby, out of sight but wait for me. I’m on my way. 10 minutes at the most.” He hung up, slammed the door, clicked in his seatbelt, and pulled away, lights and siren on, heading fast down the High, over Magdalen Bridge and the Plain and up the Iffley Road, weaving in and out of traffic as it moved aside for him, heading for Midsomer Deverell.

*

As he crossed the ring road and joined the A-road to Causton, his satnav pinged with a postcode and began to indicate where he should go, which currently, of course, was down this main road. It was the country lanes off it either before or after the Deverell turn he would need it. Good thinking on Winter’s part, Hathaway noted.

It took it nine minutes driving flat out blues and twos, and he pulled into a farmyard, behind three patrol cars and another car, along with, presumably, the farmer’s muddy 4x4 and an even muddier tractor.

He got out, and a slim, rather attractive, dark haired, white, young man approached him.

“Inspector Hathaway?” he asked.

“M’m,” Hathaway agreed. “Sergeant Winter?”

“Yup. This way Sir.” He turned to the uniformed sergeant, obviously in charge of the plods. “Wait Charlie. I’ll ping you as soon as we need you.”

“Right you are Jamie.”

“Jamie?” Hathaway couldn’t help asking as they walked through a tiny path from the yard, and over a style and through a wooded area. Hathaway could see the field, a shower and toilet block in black wood, and beyond that an old Touring caravan, at least 40 years old, beyond the trees.

“That’s my name,” Winter agreed.

“James,” James said, pointing to himself.

“Ah. No one calls me James, not since I was a child – I knew when I’d done something wrong if my mother used it,” Jamie said.

“I prefer James,” said James. “Old boss called me Jim for a while, hated that. My family used to call me Jamie, but that’s not happy times.”

“You look like a James, doubt I do,” Winter said. “Will you knock Sir?”

“Yes,” Hathaway said, striding the last few metres, and banging on the touring van’s only small door loudly.

Professor Lane opened the door nervously. “Yes?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“Detective Inspector Hathaway of Oxfordshire Police,” Hathaway said, showing his warrant card. “This is Detective Sergeant Winter of Midsomer Constabulary. May we come in?”

“Why?” he asked, sounding terrified.

“I think you know, Professor,” James said more gently than he intended.

“Sorry,” Lane said, standing aside. “Sorry.”

Hathaway pushed past him; aware Winter was behind him. “Miranda?” he called. “Miranda? Are you here? It’s the police?”

“Mumph!” came a reply.

He found the girl at the back, sitting on the tiny bed, a DVD player in front of her, My Little Pony playing, which would not have been upsetting if the girl had not had her hands tied in front of her, her ankles also bound, and been gagged loosely with a scarf. Hathaway immediately took the scarf from her mouth and began untying the knots at her wrists.

“It’s alright. I’m James, I’m from Oxford Police? Did he harm you? Touch you?”

Miranda shook her head. Behind him, Hathaway could hear Winter reading Lane his rights, arresting him, and Lane replying,

“I didn’t mean too, I didn’t mean too, I’m sorry, so sorry…”

“He was sort of kind, but he tied me up when I tried to run away,” Miranda said. “He hasn’t hit me, or anything like you mean. He kept asking me to be his daughter, and showing me pictures of some black woman in old fashioned clothes.”

Hathaway wondered what old-fashioned was from a fifteen year old Gen-Z perspective, but didn’t ask, instead began on the tied ankles.

“He bought me my favourite show, and a new Pinkie Pie, but she’s not my Pinkie Pie. I lost her when I tried to run from him in the playing fields. He said my Mum told him to drive me to school, but I knew he was lying. I loved my Pinkie!” and she began to cry.

“My sergeant found your Pinkie Pie, I promise. She’d helping our forensic officers, but she can get her back from the lab and take her to your Mum, I’ll tell her to in a minute.”

“Is that not your sergeant?” she asked, and Hathaway saw Winter standing in the doorway.

“He just borrowed me from Midsomer, I belong to another Inspector,” Winter said. “Sorry to interrupt, Sir, but I’ve stood down the cars, apart from one. I didn’t know if you wanted us to transport him to Oxford?”

“Sounds good. Miranda, are you happy to come with me, and I’ll drive you home. Look, let me show you my warrant card, Winter can show you his, and in a minute, a police car will come around to take the man who took you away.

Miranda stood up, and looked at the toy pony. “What do I do with her?” she asked, looking confused. Hathaway realised her mother had not exaggerated her naivety or her being younger than her years.

“Well, I don’t need her for evidence, you could add her to collection, or give her to a friend, or charity.”

She followed the two police officers, hugging the new toy, and looked at the man who had dragged her into the van and kept her in this cold caravan, feeding her junk food and telling her she was his daughter, apart from when he got angry, mostly with himself. Once, when he started ranting at himself, and twisting his hands, she had tried to run away; but they were much further from a proper road than she realised, and he found her when she twisted her ankle in a rabbit hole. She supposed she would have to tell everything to these policemen, but she just wanted her Mum and home.

He looked up at her, he was sitting on the tiny sofa, and began to say, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” over and over. “I was not in my right mind. I just thought…” he stood up and then clutched his head and collapsed. Hathaway immediately got down to him and held his head.

“Get Miranda to my car and call an ambulance,” he said. “He has a brain tumour, cancerous.”

*

Half and hour later, the ambulance pulled away, blues and twos, Winter in the back with a still unconscious Wallace Lane.

“Did he really think I was his daughter because of the thing in his brain?” Miranda asked, as James pulled out, following the ambulance, but much more slowly.

“Yes. I think so. But that’s not an excuse for frightening you, or your parents.”

“My Mum, there is only my Mum.”

“Well, your father in America is also very frightened,” Hathaway.

Miranda scoffed, “He doesn’t really care. Of course, he would pretend to care if a policeman phoned him. He only really cares about his career and his new wife. I’m too white for him now.”

“You don’t look white to me,” Hathaway said. “What does he lecture in then?”

“Black History.”

“I am frankly surprised that is a thing up at Harvard. Now, a little bird or two tells me you a pegasista. Now, if you keep this a secret, we can listen to a tune or two as we drive back to Oxford. But give me a second,” Hathaway said, and contacted Maddox to fetch all her belonging from forensics and take them home. He updated her on the compliant arrest, the confession, and the collapse and rush to hospital. Then he got his secret My Little Pony mix up on his phone and played it through the car speakers. “These are for my nieces, obviously,” he said, glancing at Miranda as Twilight Sparkle began to sing _Flawless_.

“Yes, of course,” Miranda nodded. “Don’t worry Inspector, I won’t tell other police officers you are a secret Brony.”

“I love the lyrics,” he said neutrally, his face not flickering at being caught out.

“Was Mum very scared?”

“She loves you very much. Would you like me to switch on the siren to get you home faster?”

“Can you do that?”

“I’m not supposed to.”

“I bet your favourite pony is Twilight!”

“Wrong!” Hathaway replied, as he put on the lights and sirens and toed it. “Starlight Glimmer,” he revealed, as the MLP shuffle moved to _At The Gala._

*

He switched off the siren once he had gone around the ring round and was at the Kidlington junction, turning down into the Banbury Road. The traffic was all going the other way, out of Oxford, on an early Friday rush hour. In no time at all he was turning into Miranda’s house’s gravel drive.

Taylor had been tracking him, so had already opened the front door, and Rose rushed out, her daughter’s plushie toy in her arms, and flung herself on her daughter as Miranda climbed out of the car. There were a lot of tears and kisses on both sides. Taylor came up to Hathaway and grinned.

“If only we could have more happy endings like this,” he said.

“If only,” Hathaway agreed, looking at his phone.

DS Winter had inputted a report from hospital. Wallace Lane had regained partial consciousness in the ambulance, enough to apologise again, admit he kept believing she was his daughter, even though he knew it was ridiculous, and to confirm his brother knew nothing of his plans, he had told his brother all he wanted was a country break. He had then slipped into unconsciousness and from there into a coma. He was no expected to wake again. Winter wanted to know whether he should remain or whether he could stand down and return to Causton.

Under this report was Maddox requesting whether she should withdraw the arrest and charges and release Terrance Lane.

Hathaway actioned both, telling Winter to stand down and go home, and Maddox to release Terrance Lane with no charges. He then texted Winter to thank him, and Maddox to tell her to take the man up to hospital, let him have the time remaining to say goodbye to his brother.

Hathaway looked up from his phone to find Taylor waiting patiently. “You want something Constable?”

“Should I stay and see if she is up to a statement, or leave my card, and go, Sir?”

“Her kidnapper is in hospital, not expected to last the night. Leave them be, there is plenty of time, this is merely a paper exercise now.”

“Yeah, I saw he collapsed at the scene. Poor bugger. I couldn’t help smiling nothing bad happened to the girl, for once, like I said, happy endings.”

“Not for Professor Lane,” Hathaway said.

Taylor shrugged. “Whose gonna know Sir? First years will still read his textbooks, never knowing, won’t they?”

“Have you been here all the time, Taylor, without a break?”

Taylor smiled. “Such is the life of a FLO.”

“Go home, I’ll clear it with your boss.”

“Thank you, Sir. I’ll just say goodbye to them then,” he said before he headed to the house.

When he came out, he was followed by Miranda and Rose. They watched Taylor get into his yellow and blue Battenburg patterned police car and pull out of the drive, before Miranda rushed up to Hathaway.

“Inspector!” she yelled. “I decided to give you the new Pinkie Pie! You will look after her, won’t you?”

Hathaway looked at the soft toy suspiciously – liking decent fantasy plots and great show-style tunes was one thing, and yes, he did have a soft toy from his childhood which he occasionally still clung to when triggered badly, but he wasn’t sure. But he looked at the young girl, as neurodiverse as his friend Phillip in her different way, who was trying to say thank you for him removing her from a terrifying situation.

“It will be an honour to look after this Pinkie Pie. Thank you,” he said, and gave a little bow. He expected a little giggle, but Miranda bowed back, then ran back to her Mum.

“Thank you so much, Inspector,” Rose called.

Hathaway nodded awkwardly and got into his car. He watched the mother and daughter walk back into the house, arms around each other, in his rear view mirror, and then pulled back out of the house drive and headed home, calling Maddox to tell her he was going home to get some sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So not the dark ending I planned, and this series was supposed to be based on more real-life Thames Valley Police about me, but I went all Lewis Dreaming Spires and posh ‘British’ stereotypes and full on Colin Dexter brain tumour made me do it tropes there, lol 😊  
> Also, the MLP references may have got out of control, but in my defence, I was writing this in-between talking to BK on Zoom watching her struggle to breathe and hearing her spikes in temperature while she waited for her test result –which was NEGATIVE thankfully! 😊
> 
> Flawless with lyrics, and the lyrics are great  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scWT1EonKKA
> 
> And if you are into Into The Woods, you might be astounded by their audacity with At The Gala  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laMqjS3QoW4
> 
> Starlight Glimmer, when we first meet her, is an evil dictator, destroying individuality as she is threatened by magical change which happens to all colts and fillies, she is redeemed slowly, and learns to be good, and use her very powerful magic nicely, but she still has a dark days. For a former gifted child who was abused as a child and struggles to fit in, she might be a favourite of Hathaway, lol 😊


	5. An abandoned baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While shopping late one night, James finds a baby left in a bin... and gets a little too emotionally involved.

  
  


Hathaway had spent hours going over the evidence, such as it was, of the recent spate of burglaries in the expensive houses off the Banbury Road, chiefly belonging to Professors and Fellows and their families, along with the burglaries in the gated community estate of Arcadia Gardens. The MO was the same, so he assumed it to be the same person or persons unknown. Never had they left a scrap of DNA or a partial fingerprint. He saw that the Grand houses of both South Oxfordshire and Midsomer had also been targeted by the same MO. He assumed it to be the same perpetrator. He knew that DCs and DSs in at least three other stations were going through this patchy evidence, but it didn’t hurt to go through it himself. Again. There was no murder to distract him, at least.

  
  


He looked up and stretched, and realised the office was empty and dark, and it was already gone nine in the evening. He remembered he had essential shopping to do, and had wanted to catch his local Tesco’s and not have to drive out to one of the 24 hour out of town supermarkets on or near the ring road, so called it a day, and logged out. Grabbing his jacket and coat, he left and rushed across Christchurch Meadow, hoping to get to the Rose Lane Gate before it was locked for the night. Following all the murders that had happened over the last 10 years or so in Deadman’s Walk, Christchurch College now locked the gates at sunset or 10 pm, whichever was sooner.

  
  


It was ten to ten by the time Hathaway had got into the Metro and grabbed a basket, and started grabbing the groceries and toiletries and cleaning stuff he had somehow managed to completely run out of.

  
  


By the time he had finished, it was gone ten, and he was the only customer left. The self-service check-outs and all but one of the staffed ones were closed. The security guard was locking the front doors onto the Cowley Road, and a manager was guarding the backdoor to the small car park on Union Street, pointedly rattling her keys as a young man in Tesco uniform dragged a cage full of food wastage through it. The woman on the check out looked stressed, and kept yawning and looking at the clock. He felt he had to apologise and tried to be optimistic about her getting a little overtime. She glared pointedly and started scanning even faster, his items piling up higgledy piggledy at the end the conveyor belt.

  
  


Hathaway had paid for his items, with another apology and thanks and awkward smile, and put them into two strong canvas bags he’d had folded up in his coat pockets, and was heading for the car park exit, when he heard a shout from the young man, outside, and he began to run towards the doors, along with the manager and the security guard.

  
  


He got there just behind the manager, standing on the top of the disabled ramp slope, overlooking the store’s Grundy bins. The young man was staring in the bins, looking horrified.

  
  


“What’s the problem?” the manager asked, sharply. “Stop mucking about Gavin, you’ve been warned.”

  
  


“What have you found?” Hathaway asked him.

  
  


“Sir, there is no problem, if you could just get to your car and get home…”

  
  


James’ car was at work, he had nowhere to park in safely near his flat, he knew Maddox would pick him up without fail for a shout, but there was no point saying anything other than producing his warrant card.

  
  


“Detective Inspector Hathaway, Oxford Police. What have you found; you look horrified?”

  
  


“A… a… I think there is a dead baby under that cardboard.”

  
  


Rather than go down the ramp and around, Hathaway climbed over the railings, onto the other large bin behind it and shone his phone torch app into the bin.

  
  


Yes, he could see a tiny face. Lying flat on the closed bin, praying that it was just a doll, he reached out, and pulled out a minute new-born baby. He was expecting a cold, lifeless corpse, perhaps rigor mortis already set in, but instead the babe was warm, not warm enough, but alive-warm, and barely breathing, but breathing.

  
  


“Ambulance!” he shouted, “Someone call an ambulance!”

  
  


He eased up onto his knees and pulled the child to his chest, wrapping suit jacket and wool coat about it.

  
  


The security guard phoned for an ambulance, the manager went rushing into the store for baby blankets, baby clothing, nappies, a bottle, and formula. She really had no idea if it was needed, but she wanted to do something, anything. Besides, it would look good in the newspapers and local TV that Tesco’s provided all the baby needed. She couldn’t think about the worst case.

  
  


When she got back, Gavin had helped the police officer out of the bins, and he was sitting on the ground, the baby pressed close to him, wrapped into his jacket and coat. She ripped open the baby blanket and the new-born nappy and passed them down to him, just as she saw the blue lights flashing over the rooftops.

  
  


“Ambulance on the way,” she said, for something to say. This was awful, why would someone throw a baby away like rubbish.

  
  


“Thanks,” he said, and wrapped the blanket over the baby and held the nappy under him. “I need to get onto Control, we need to find the mother, I guess.”

  
  


“Who would do something like this?” the manager asked.

  
  


“A desperate teenager? Someone mentally ill?” he guessed. “For whatever reason, she will need medical attention too,” he added.

  
  


The store manager thought about how she could barely make it to the toilet after her twins were born, and realised he was right. The sirens now could be heard.

  
  


“Help us up,” he said, and she and Gavin helped him up, while the security guard went out onto the road to guide the ambulance into the car park. It pulled up, and two women jumped out of either side, the doors closing with a bang.

  
  


“Alright love? Let’s have a look?” the paramedic asked, as her driver opened the ambulance back doors.

  
  


“She’s breathing, barely,” Hathaway said. “I’m keeping her warm.”

  
  


“Let me have a look.”

  
  


“I’m a police officer. I’m holding her.”

  
  


The paramedic took one look at his shocked and determined face, and said gently, “Come on, let’s get you both in the ambulance.”

  
  


Hathaway nodded awkwardly, and followed her, climbing up the steps easily with his long legs. Just as he did so, he saw a police care pull up behind the ambulance and two young, uniformed women got out.

  
  


“Oh,” one of them said, seeing the Inspector. “It’s DI Hathaway, isn’t it, Sir?”

  
  


“I climbed into the bins to get the baby; I’m going to hospital Constable. You need to find the mother.”

  
  


“We will.”

  
  


“And take statements from the Tesco staff.”

  
  


“We know,” she replied, rolling her eyes at her partner.

  
  


Hathaway saw it, but knew he had a reputation for being a control freak who did not delegate. He was trying, God knew he was trying, but he did find it hard still not to be perfect, not to do everything. He was even more of a struggle to trust anyone.

  
  


The paramedic got in behind him, with a Tesco carrier bag full of the baby items the manager had shoved in her hand, which she tossed into a corner, and then driver closed the doors.

  
  


“Sit there,” she pointed to a seat. “Let me look at them.”

  
  


Hathaway found his hands had locked, but she helped him let go, and lay the baby down and began to do obs. “She’s a girl,” he said as he did so.

  
  


The paramedic nodded, and said, “Make yourself useful, open that third drawer, I am going to get a IV line into her foot, let’s get her hydrated. Poor little thing. What’s your name Inspector?”

  
  


“Um. Hathaway. James Hathaway.”

  
  


“Okay, hello little Jamie, we’re going to make you warm and comfortable, now,” and as prepared to put in the tiny IV line, the baby began to squall pathetically in protest.

  
  


For anyone who was conversant in Hathaway’s tiny facial movements, he was startled at the baby being suddenly and abruptly named after him, but as this was only a slight dilating of his pupils and small quirk of his lips, the paramedic did not notice, and thought he was unusually unemotional, and was perhaps in shock.

  
  


“There, in we go sweetie,” she said, as she got in the tiny butterfly and withdrew the needle, before putting in the IV line. The baby let out a louder noise, a little yelp or cry.

  
  


“This is good,” she told Hathaway. “She’s making noises.”

  
  


“All safe there?” the driver called.

  
  


“Seatbelt, James,” the paramedic said, and he nodded, and sat back down on the seat beside the bed, and belted up.

  
  


The paramedic took a pink plastic cot down from a shelf above the bed, put the baby inside, strapped it on the bed, and then sat down on the other seat at the end, and strapped herself in.

  
  


“All safe Ange,” she called, and the ambulance began to move, twisting around the car park and out onto Union Street. Once on the road, the sirens began, and they started to accelerate very fast indeed.

  
  


James couldn’t take his eyes of the baby. She was perfect, a tiny miracle who had survived being dumped in a bin.

  
  


“Will she be alright?” he asked.

  
  


“We’ll need to get her checked – she is dehydrated, but the main risk is infection, the umbilical cord was cut inexpertly, probably with something not sterile. My concern is also for the mother, she will be in a bad way and need medical attention.”

  
  


James had only thought it terms of dumping a baby, and now he thought about the fact she must have just given birth. Perhaps she was young? Afraid? Mentally ill? Homeless? An addict? All were possible, or a mix of them.

  
  


“The two officers who arrived will begin the search, luckily there is CCTV in the doors and the car park of the supermarket,” he said, and wished he could look at the evidence himself. He pulled out his phone and dialled Maddox.

  
  


“Maddox,” his sergeant answered sleepily. “Sir? What’s happened?”

  
  


“I found a new-born baby in a bin outside Cowley Tesco’s and am going to hospital with her now. Which means I can’t get the Tesco’s CCTV or coordinate the hunt for the mother.”

  
  


“I’m sure uniform is perfectly capable of doing their jobs, Sir. And why are you going to hospital? Didn’t you call an ambulance?”

  
  


“I’m in the ambulance, Maddox, I need to…” he paused, and thought, _What do I need to do?_

  
  


“I need to see she is fine, Maddox, and see she…” _survives,_ he added silently, looking at the tiny scrap of human being, lying now silent and still.

  
  


“I was asleep, Sir, and this is something that Uniform deal with, it’s not really something that needs a CID presence yet, not until we know the reasons why the baby was dumped…”

  
  


“Just go and over see them Sergeant!”

  
  


  
  


*

  
  


“Yeah, right!” Maddox said to her phone after he hung up on her. She flung it down so she could get dressed. She was not going to Tesco’s, he didn’t even tell her which one it was, and she was confident uniformed officers had looked at CCTV as well as done all else they could do to find the mother.

  
  


Once she had cracked open a can of cola to give herself a shot of caffeine, got dressed, and into her car, she called into the station to ask for an update from the PS on duty.

  
  


A young woman, or rather, a teenager, looking half dead and in shock, and was actually recorded giving birth, on Cowley Road Tesco’s own CCTV. She had been picked up on other CCTV earlier in the day just curled up in a shop doorway on the Plain, begging. She was also bruised and looked to be in pain. Other CCTV had picked her up staggering up the Cowley Road, holding her abdomen, looking terrified. They currently had cars and beat officers looking out for her and were monitoring traffic cameras to see if she could be picked up.

  
  


Between the police traffic and anti-social cameras, and the ones belonging to the city council, universities, shops, offices and cafes, along with hotel and nightclub ones, Oxford was a very watched city. Even that detective TV show hung up cameras for a third of the year just to film crowd scenes… she was hopeful the young mother would be found before she perhaps bled to death or something. It didn’t really bear thinking about. Whether there was any prosecution would depend on the circumstances of the girl, and how old she was, and whether she deliberately chose to abandon the baby or was suffering from post-partum psychosis or some such.

  
  


She has seen information about prototype CCTV with in-built leaning AI, but it was a big civil liberties issue, like facial recognition. Shame, really, as if you were innocent, what was the problem, but a thinking CCTV camera wouldn’t rely on a human looking at a screen, it would see a woman and in labour and call an ambulance immediately. The footage had made the city-wide search less about arresting a perp for attempted murder and more about saving another child, from what she gathered. Still, now she had to tell Hathaway all was in control, nothing and no one needed his vigilance. He really could not let anything go sometimes!

  
  


As she trusted her fellow officers, but she also, sadly, trusted her boss to over-react, she went straight to the John Radcliffe Maternity Hospital, to see if she could take him away and leave the nurses etc. do their job.

  
  


*

  
  


Maddox parked up in the near empty night-time overflow car park and headed straight for the main entrance to the maternity hospital, the highest and first built of the four hospital blocks on the John Radcliffe hospital complex. As all the floor levels corresponded to one another on a campus built on a steep hill, she came in on Level 3, and went straight to a desk by the door. A woman receptionist and another woman in the uniform of a security guard were sitting, sharing a bar of chocolate, and chatting and didn’t first notice her.

  
  


“Excuse me?”

  
  


“Yes?” the receptionist stood up and looked her up and down. “Visiting time has ended. Unless you’re an emergency…?” her eyes flickered to Maddox’s abdomen.

  
  


Confused, she looked down in case she had miraculously sprouted a bump – if she had it would have been that curry and roti she over ate alone in front of the TV! “I’m not…”

  
  


“Then, unless you are the lesbian partner of a new mother, Miss, I must ask you to leave,” the security guard said aggressively, also standing, her eyes also flickering over Maddox with contempt, but more her face and hands, not her non-existent bump.

  
  


Maddox pulled out her warrant card. “I’m Detective Sergeant Maddox, Oxford CID…” _you judgy white bitch…_ “and my boss came in with a baby found in a bin, I need to know where he is.”

  
  


The blonde white bitch of a security guard sniffed, and sat back down, turning her back and going back to the chocolate. The receptionist smiled weakly, almost apologetically, before frowning at her colleague’s back, before she smiled at Maddox again, as if she knew she was only protecting new mothers and babies, even if her colleague had other ideas.

  
  


“Let me see, they didn’t come in this door, probably came over the bridge from A&E. Let me check,” she said, tapping on her keyboard. “Oh, yes, Jamie Doe, admitted to Ward 6 – that’s the top floor, high dependency, gold and silver star. Room 7, that’s on the end of the corridor – take the lift up and keep walking straight, okay?”

  
  


Maddox nodded, and smiled. Jamie, she thought, smiling.

  
  


*

  
  


In the lift, Maddox realised her legs were shaking. She leant on the wall and took a deep breath. She hugged herself, as she was also shaking inside. Too many memories of the Maternity wards in Sheffield and Leeds, of Tony and her hopes dashed and broken, listening to other people’s babies crying, another loss, another miscarriage…

  
  


*

  
  


By the time the lift was on the sixth floor, she has put back her professional exterior, and waved her warrant card at the nurse at the station opposite the lift and followed the corridor. Suddenly she heard her name.

  
  


“Sergeant Maddox?”

  
  


She turned; it was PC Miah. She grinned.

  
  


“What are you doing here, Sarg?” he asked

  
  


“His lordship called me,” she’d let out without thinking. She was tired. And a little emotional, but it was not very professional to say such a thing to an inferior officer, especially one in uniform.

  
  


“Come to pry his nibs the Ice Queen away, then.”

  
  


“If I can, I doubt he’ll go until he knows the baby is safe, the mother too if I know him. Any news on that?”

  
  


“Yeah, they found her five minutes ago, ambulance been dispatched. This is Nikki White, by the way, the baby’s social worker – maybe the Mum’s too, she’s sixteen. I’ve got lumbered with community relations, init?”

  
  


“She’s Asian?”

  
  


“Yep. Gonna go to her parents, with the girl’s consent, right?” he added, looking at this White.

  
  


Ms White was tall, skinny, with massive of orange curly hair and sparking green eyes, Irish most likely, Maddox decided. “Yes, unless she is not conscious – sixteen to eighteen is a grey area, not of age, but also of age in other things. Law is a bugger,” she smiled, “they made staying on at school or education or training compulsory until eighteen, but still let sixteen year olds theoretically leave home, get married, join the army, and not cover them automatically by family and child social work teams. Very unlikely family will want her back, right Constable?”

  
  


Miah shrugged, sighed, and looked at Maddox, rolling his eyes. _Don’t ask me to reinforce your cultural ideas,_ she read in the eye roll.

  
  


“Where is the Inspector, then?”

  
  


“Straight down,” Miah pointed down to the end of the corridor.

  
  


_*_

  
  


She saw him through the glass panel in the door, sitting in the corner of the room, biting the edge of his thumbnail and doing that not quite rocking he did, a tiny movement, not really noticeable unless you took the time to know him. The baby was in a cot with a heat lamp over the top of it, and a tiny oxygen sats monitor was clipped to her heel. A midwife sat the other side of the room, one eye on the display, but she did not look concerned.

  
  


Maddox knocked gently, and pushed the door in, and slipped in quietly. The midwife looked up. “I’m his sergeant,” she whispered, looking at the tiny little scrap of humanity, the tough little fighter, who survived being in a bin for nearly an hour. She was tiny, with such tiny features, and lots of black hair. Maddox knew from many friends’ babies, that hair often rubbed off. Besides, if the family kept her, it would probably be shaved off. She looked a little dark for an Asian baby, more Caribbean, like she would…

  
  


_Stop! Pull yourself together, Maddox, you boss is in some kind of obsessive funk, you need to be the together one here._

  
  


“Maddox?” Hathaway said, looking at her with his weird, pale, cat-shaped eyes sorrowfully.

  
  


“Here to take you home, Sir. Ambulance bringing the mother in. She’s under eighteen. Social worker outside, PC Miah to liaise with family…”

  
  


“We’ll need to interview her. Arrest her. Attempted infanticide.”

  
  


Was that a separate crime to murder, Maddox wondered? Probably manslaughter, or reckless endangerment of a life through diminished responsibility.

  
  


“Think Moody needs to call on the charge, after the obstetrician, social worker, and psychiatrist reports, Sir. Come on, it’s gone midnight. Have you eaten?”

  
  


“I think that’s a jolly good idea, James,” the midwife said, standing. “It is a shock, even for a seasoned officer, finding a baby like this, and it’s good your sergeant here is going to look after you. We all have your number, and will keep you informed, as will the constable outside. Say goodbye now to little Jamie.”

  
  


Hathaway looked at the two women who were talking to him as if he were an idiot, and curled a lip in disgust. He went to the cot and stroked the baby’s cheek, and then walked to the door. Maddox opened it and followed him silently back down the corridor, looking at the stooped form in front of her, curling into himself, despite his great height.

  
  


“Alright Sir?” she asked when they were in the lift.

  
  


“Fine,” he lied. She knew he was lying.

  
  


“Found him then?” the receptionist asked, now sitting the other side of the desk to the security guard, she noticed, and no longer sharing the chocolates.

  
  


“Yes, thanks, your directions were perfect,” Maddox said, and resisted kissing her teeth at the glare that came off the security guard. Same old, whatever.

  
  


Hathaway looked up at the sound of voices, and looked confused, as he had just been putting one foot in front of the other and had barely registered his sergeant’s hand on his arm or back as directed him. “I didn’t come in here.”

  
  


“No, this is labour entrance only,” the receptionist said. “They’d have brought you in over the bridge from A&E. Good night officers.”

  
  


“Night,” Maddox called cheerful, as she managed to steer Hathaway to the door.

  
  


Once outside, something registered, as he pulled out his fags and lit one, taking a deep inhale. Maddox tried not to cough. “This way, Sir.”

  
  


They walked up the car park in silence. The weather had broken, and it was now a clear night, the stars visible, as there was little light pollution this far up the hill, where there were more parklands that hospitals.

  
  


When they finally reached her car, he looked up and sighed, flicking his half finished ciggie away. “Ever think about children, Maddox?”

  
  


“Let’s not go there, Sir. When did you last eat? Was it that cheese roll I got you at lunch time?”

  
  


Her boss looked at her, startled, as if he couldn’t remember. “I was shopping for food, when…”

  
  


“I expect the store manager or security guard or whoever will have kept your shopping, Sir. We’ll go see in the morning. I have a mean curry at home. Mum came down the weekend and cooked for me. Mums eh?”

  
  


There was this sudden silence between them, in which they both thought of young mums who were children themselves putting babies in bins, and Maddox wondered if Hathaway had had a decent mother, despite all Lewis told her, and Hathaway thought about his mother blaming him for everything…

  
  


“My mother is no longer with us, but I cannot imagine her cooking for me as an adult,” he said into the silence, awkwardly, with no outward emotion.

  
  


“Some Mums then,” Maddox said, and smiled, and put on a cross between a Jamaican and a Yorkshire accent and said, “You ‘ave been letting yourself go girl, with Tony overseas. That’s no good. You’ll waste away, so I’ll cook up you some treats, you make you eat them.” She stopped, to see him twitch his lips in an almost smile. “I defrosted curried goat, but there is mutton curry, hot chicken stew, sweet potato, calloo, more chicken stew, more roti, rice an’ peas… take your pick from the freezer.”

  
  


“Curried goat sounds nice,” he agreed.

  
  


“Good, and we’ll open some beer, and you can crash, then we’ll get a sitrep first thing and then fetch your shopping,” she paused, then checked, “If that’s alright, Sir?”

  
  


He looked awkward for a moment, and then nodded. “Thank you… Lizzie.”

  
  


She smiled, and unlocked her car.

  
  


*

  
  


James did not realise how hungry he was until the first mouthful of spicy curry and roti hit, and he began to shovel the food in as fast as he could, sitting on his sergeant’s sofa, tray on his lap.

  
  


“Careful, Sir,” Lizzie said, “you’ll give yourself heartburn. My Mum doesn’t stint on the spice and chilli.”

  
  


“It’s good,” James replied, mouthful of roti and meat. “My Mum was a good cook too, but old-fashioned English food. I might have alluded to Crevecoeur, but not only was my father Estate Manager, for a while my mother was the Cook, then became the part time pastry chef for ‘dos’ after I was born. Once we left, money was tight, but she still could create anything out of a few scraps. I don’t often think of things like that.”

  
  


“It hurts, doesn’t it? Grief? That’s probably why, with your Mum gone. Grief never leaves you, it hits you in waves. Did me today.”

  
  


James looked up, curious, sympathy in his eyes.

  
  


“Since we’re in the mood for sharing, it’s not just you who got affected by this baby, Sir. Tony and me, well, we had our… we lost our… that is, we tried three times and lost…”

  
  


In an uncharacteristic gesture, James reached out and took Lizzie’s hand and held it. “That must have been unbearable for you both,” he said.

  
  


Lizzie nodded, and looked at his hand, then knocked it away, getting up. “I’ll get more beer, and the spare quilt. Sure you’ll be alright here, you don’t want the spare room?”

  
  


“I’ll be fine here,” James reassured her. “And I think we’ve probably had enough beer, going by our loquaciousness, don’t you? Perhaps some tea?”

  
  


“Or hot chocolate, since it’s so late?” Lizzie suggested. “Help us sleep.”

  
  


James nodded, but sadly. “Robbie used to make me cocoa,” he said, revealing nothing and everything in one simple sentence to Lizzie.

  
  


“My Tony used to bring me hot chocolate in bed on a Sunday morning, with marshmallows floating on whipped cream,” she said, and watched her boss’s eyes as he realised that she knew all. He nodded awkwardly.

  
  


“Sounds like a perfect husband to me,” he said carefully.

  
  


Lizzie nodded, and went into the kitchen. Long distance marriage hurt.

  
  


*

  
  


Hathaway awoke with a thumping headache, feeling completely disorientated. Somewhere a radio was playing, something pop and upbeat, and he felt old and tired, as well as confused. He could also hear children, lots of noisy children, although the sounds of them came and went.

  
  


He opened his eyes, and tried to sit up. The world was blurry and confusing. He squinted hard to make out where he was. He was in a small front room which faced straight onto the street – he knew this, despite the net curtains and red velvet not quite meeting curtains in front, just from the sounds. A front door led straight out onto the street, and he was curled up on a sofa. much shorter than his under the small staircase going upstairs from the front door. The radio was playing behind him. Another group of children passed, right by the tiny front window of the small living room he was in.

  
  


He managed to sit up, and pulled the quilt which was half off him back up over him, realising he was just in his boxers and vest, his shirt crumbled on the floor, and his suit draped over the back of the easy chair the other side of the long coffee table in front of him. A TV hung on a wall over a mantle, and underneath was an old Victorian fireplace with an upright basic oil radiator in it. There were photos and ornaments on the mantle, but without his contacts, he couldn’t make them out, but he guessed they were of Tony Maddox, and his sergeant’s family, as he now remembered where he was.

  
  


“Maddox,” he called, guessing the radio was her, in the kitchen.

  
  


She walked in from the kitchen, through a tiny door which led from the front room, behind the sofa he was laid on, under the stairs.

  
  


“Sir? You’re awake? I thought I’d let you sleep. I hope you don’t mind, I took your keys and fetched you a clean shirt and stuff. And your glasses. I looked for your contacts, but couldn’t find them.”

  
  


“Bathroom cabinet,” he said. “Thank you Maddox.” The memory of that tiny baby in his arms, pressing her against him to keep her alive, washed over him. “Sitrep Maddox?”

  
  


The fact they had eaten together, got drunk together, used each other’s first names for a while, he buried, and as his contacts were no in, so could not see her slight hurt at his brusqueness and formality. In all the years of falling asleep on Lewis’s sofa, he had never felt so embarrassed and awkward.

  
  


“Mother in critical, the placenta didn’t come away properly, we were lucky to find her alive. Parents contacted, and at her and the baby’s bedsides. Social services involved. She was at school, at Cheney’s, so they are involved too. Waiting for Psychology and other reports, but Moody has decided she has not case to answer for, no point getting things worse for the poor thing.”

  
  


“Did the family know?”

  
  


“They found out about a week ago, and she ran out in a row, seems to have been on the streets since. It was the mother who spotted it, according to Miah, made her take a test, as the girl either really didn’t know, or she was in denial. she’s sedated, so guess we will never know, as Moody has closed the case file apart from waiting for full reports from other agencies.”

  
  


“But they are taking her back, despite...”

  
  


“Being religious, were you going to say?” Maddox interrupted.

  
  


“Well, yes...”

  
  


“I’d guess nearly losing their daughter might have made them see what is important. Maybe the mother will adopt like she is her sister, or something. That happens, doesn’t it?”

  
  


“Does it?” Hathaway asked. “That feels like a 1960s kitchen sink or Angry Young Man play or novel, not something for the twenty first century, but as you’ve done your uniform policing in Leeds and Sheffield, I’ll bow to your expertise.”

  
  


“Where did you do your probation and training then, Sir?”

  
  


“Around,” he said vaguely. “Can you pass me my specs, Maddox.”

  
  


“Oh. Sure. Of course. Tea? Toast? Scrambled eggs?” the blurry Maddox asked, coming nearer and more into focus, placing the bag of his clothes in front of him. He rooted around, and found his glasses case, and put them on. He had spare contacts at the station, also spare glasses, so he must remember to bring these ones back home.

  
  


“Yes, please, to all three.”

  
  


“I’ll leave you to get yourself sorted, then Sir. Bathroom at the top of the stairs.”

  
  


*

  
  


After an awkward breakfast, where the finding of an abandoned baby was first item on Radio Oxford news, and the local breakfast show was half talk radio, half music, many listeners phoned in the say their piece, from how evil the mother was, to the appalling level of teenage pregnancy, to wishing them well. Judgements were three times more than kindness, of course, as they always were in any interactive media, from letter to the editor to internet trolls, as Maddox pointed out. They unfortunately were also talking about the baby being named after the brave CID officer who had climbed in the large bins and kept her alive, single handedly.

  
  


“I didn’t climb in, I reached in, and the Tesco staff all helped,” he grumbled, throwing his cutlery onto his plate, the eggs and bread turning to ashes in his mouth.

  
  


“Do you want to go back to the hospital and see her, Sir?” Maddox asked gently.

  
  


“M’m,” he replied, nodding awkwardly at her. She smiled at him, and then carried on grinning, because he looked so scholarly in his tortoiseshell framed glasses, or maybe even like a parish priest.

  
  


“What?” he asked.

  
  


“Nothing, Sir,” she smiled, swallowing her grin.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not plotted or planned like most of my work, just an alphabetical list of crimes and off duty activities and a flow of imagination.  
> There is a companion to this, the Mundane Casebook of DS Winter, from Midsomer Murders.  
> If you have a suggestion other than murder or a ship, comment below with it :)
> 
> I have a neurological illness which gives me tremors, spasms, word dysphasia and brain fog, and although I proof read several times, as does my beta and daughter, there will be typos and swapped out words that were missed. If you spot one, please let me know and I will edited as soon as I can :)


End file.
